Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. I got an early copy of today's book

of the mail a few months ago. My wife happened to get her hands on it first and, you know,

in between taking care of our toddler, she crushed the book and pretty much grabbed me by the collar

and said, you have to read this. The book is called Tilt by Emma Patti. It's her debut novel about an extremely

pregnant woman in the aftermath of an earthquake. And in this interview with MPR's Mary

Louise Kelly, Patti talks about being inspired by how giant disasters can change your life,

even if you and your family come out unscathed, right? How things

occurring outside of your control can push you to make changes to the things you can.

That's coming up. In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors. On our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people, helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

The opening chapters of Emma Patti's debut novel introduce us to Annie.

Now, Annie is massively pregnant, 37 weeks.

She's shopping at IKEA in Portland, Oregon, trying to wrestle a baby crib off the rack

when everything starts to shake. It's an earthquake,

the big one, the lights go out, phone lines go down, her car keys are lost, and so she starts to walk.

The novel is titled Tilt, and Emma Patti is here now. Hey. Hi, it's great to be here. I gather the

initial inspiration, at least, was you that when you were very

pregnant, you went shopping for a crib at the Portland, IKEA, and the ground started to shake?

Yeah, I, you know, I was so scared of the earthquake at that point that as soon as the building

started to shake, I thought, oh, it's the big one. It was not the big one.

It was a large truck coming by.

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