San Francisco BART Map, 2005

“There are thousands of us working together to build the best, most accurate maps we can collectively draw.”

-John Green

I wonder if we have too many maps. After all, many of us live in a post-map world; we obey our GPS with such blindness to other options, that we even make an illegal u-turn when we hear the seductive voice say “make an illegal u-turn.”

Why do we make new maps when can get directions and street views from our phones? Does drawing a new map show people how to go somewhere, or help others find us?

The author John Green posted a video a while back about how groups of us constantly make new maps because there is  “Insufficient Cartography.” Patrick, the map-drawing 13 year old star of my new novel Darwin Maps, would say: “I agree 100% with John Green! We need more maps!”

The early action of Darwin Maps takes place on the BART subway tracks below San Francisco and Oakland. When fleeing an attack one day, he rides an old tricked-out subway car to New York City in a flash. How’d he get there? He’s not sure, but Patrick soon discovers that “mapping is in his blood.” He is forced to draw new ways for BART to travel to other worldwide cities. Patrick understands that there are many maps yet to be drawn; there will always be insufficient cartography.

And maps change. I moved to New York City in July of 2001, just before 9/11 happened. After the tragic loss of the Twin Towers, the subway map had to be redrawn; no subways would be able to stop there for a long time. I was struck by how the nifty credit-card-sized map that I had gotten just weeks earlier had now become outdated.  Even on my most turbulent rides on the subway after 9/11, tracing my route on the map allowed my imagination to run wild. Maps involve us in our world by forcing us to become explorers.

The other problem with maps is that they are so darn pretty. I mean, you can just look at them for minutes and hours. Remember how Holden Caulfield famously got distracted in the opening of The Catcher in the Rye because he was trying to figure out the New York subway grid? Not only did he get lost, but he left his team’s fencing foils behind on the train. Maps are often stunning works of art and design that can entertain us as much as they guide us. If they cause us to forget our team’s equipment, then it must be one special map.