Amy Fusselman’s Cloud Six is less a novel than a short story that has been cut up and fanned out to create space for supporting ideas and observations on existentialism and grief. Maybe a better descriptor than “novel” would be “illustration,” “fable,” or “commiseration.” Concrete resolutions are thin on the ground here. Instead, Cloud Six underscores the wisdom widely attributed to both Guy Finley and Valery Satterwhite, “everything is in perfect order whether you understand it or not.” So why waste time trying? Fusselman even uses the structure of the story to make this point, which can be funny or frustrating depending on your outlook.
A woman named Mam and her husband Bunko are the ostensible protagonists of this tale. But more than the main characters, they are proxies for the rest of us. Mam is a “learning specialist” at a school in Scottsdale, Arizona; her husband, Bunko, is a computer programmer and occasional pet psychic. Mam’s best friend is more traditionally attractive and has a better-paying job than her. Bunko has a bit of a drinking problem. Both of them have experienced the loss of their parents, and Mam the loss of her previous spouse, the father of her teenaged daughter, Penny. Mam’s father was an abusive alcoholic, which explains her attempts to keep Bunko’s sobriety intact even after they’re both dead. Bunko’s mother died of cancer and he never knew his father. The two have been married for seven years and are now looking for a fresh start in a different part of the country. Sounds familiar, no?
Mam and Bunko are drawn broadly enough that any of us can relate to the responsibilities, losses, and daily frustrations they’ve experienced. Fusselman establishes their near-blank-slate relatability so that when they suddenly die (not a spoiler—this is the basis for the story) and are sent to a cut-rate afterlife called Cloud Six, we are already primed to empathize with their desperation for answers. When the two learn about a bodega with a bar at the back where it is possible to see how your living loved ones are getting along without you, Mam and Bunko make it their mission to get there.
In an episode of Seinfeld called “The Pitch”, two characters, George and Jerry, pitch an idea to television executives for a show that is “about nothing” in a meta nod to the show they exist in. This seems to be the framework of Cloud Six. Things “happen” in much the same way things happen to us all every day. But no matter what, we always return to a baseline of mundanity after adjusting to the changes we experience, regardless of how unsettling those changes may be at first. A “new normal” as they say. Similarly, no matter what bizarre thing takes place in this story, the comedically neutral narrative tone and regular dashes of absurdity flatten every spike of strangeness back to level ground. Events are only briefly surprising, especially when a character remarks on why this thing shouldn’t be surprising at all. Whether it’s a shapeshifting demon, a talking baby rabbit named Leroy, a scientist working in a random lab hidden in the all-white landscape, or the Devil himself, someone will remind you that nothing is actually weird, merely unfamiliar until you get used to it.
“‘This place is just a confusing mishmash of crazy situations with no direction at all on how to navigate any of it!’ Mam said nothing. That was all true. But it had been true in Scottsdale, too.”
Throughout the novel, there are several interjections from people existing outside of the story, like the author and her intern. There are also a total of five introductions, and sixty-two endnotes containing funny notes and clarification on which textual insertions are facts and which were made up for use in this story. Multiple authorial asides include interactions with Satan, and there is also one point where Satan addresses the reader directly, expressing his disapproval of Amy Fusselman setting any part of her story in his realm. He too, like every character we meet, must confront disruptive change. But just as nothing is actually weird, neither is it permanent. No state in the novel is truly final and, through a range of characters with varied power and knowledge–as well as the many introductions, reintroductions, and footnotes that force us to cope with constant change as readers–Fusselman invites us to come to terms with that.
For anyone hoping to stick with Mam and Bunko and learn what sets them apart from anyone else we could be reading about, these interruptions may annoy you. Especially because they are written in much the same way as the story of Mam and Bunko. In other words, Fusselman maintains the same narrative distance between the reader and every single character, including the fictional version of herself. An intense deep-dive into each character’s psychology as they complete their journey is not the point of this novel. Mam and Bunko’s sojourn to the bodega isn’t the point of this novel. Nor is their daughter Penny’s reckoning with the loss of her parents, or Mam’s younger brother Bill reckoning with his own grief and new status as Penny’s guardian. Everything is given the same weight, resulting in a hall of mirrors where you might find yourself bumping into what you believe is the way through the story only to find it’s a dead end. Engaging with Cloud Six requires shedding any expectations you might have about how a novel should unfold and what you should be left with in the end. Just as Mam and Bunko must learn to shed their expectations of the afterlife, and fictional Amy Fusselman must learn to shed her expectations of daily life, plants, and Hell.
This novel probably won’t devastate or elate you. It won’t even ask you to ruminate for very long on the facts or ideas presented, or to sit with the emotions that would typically attend the story’s events. The considerations of Cloud Six are expansive enough to become almost meaningless, which feels purposeful, as if Fusselman wants us to think about the concept of meaning stripped of all its usual rules. The “meaning” of Cloud Six is as wispy as its namesake, leaving you with as much or as little to chew on as you’d like while you wait for whatever comes next to begin.
FICTION
by Amy Fusselman
Catapult
Published on September 22, 2026
