An earnest, thoughtful story about an unplanned discovery.
Viles tells the story of a couple caught in the middle of a Bigfoot controversy in this debut novel.
In the shadow of Mount St. Helens, widower and self-proclaimed “Bigfoot agnostic” Jake Holly is taking shelter from the rain in the hollow of a Douglas fir when he hears the impossible: two sasquatches lying together. When they discover Jake’s proximity, he reflexively fires his rifle toward them, killing the female and sending the male fleeing, wounded, into the forest. Immediately remorseful, Jake and his horse drag the dead sasquatch back to the road to keep it from scavengers, where Jake’s new girlfriend, Jess O’Reilly, picks them up. Jake and Jess take the body to a friend’s funeral home in Aurora, Washington, and try to figure out how to proceed; a local boy sees them unload the creature and posts about it online. Soon reporters are descending on Aurora; the president of the United States is on the phone; and Jake is arrested for murder on the order of Jess’ father, the district attorney, who disapproves of Jake dating his daughter. Caught up in a cyclone of grief, anxiety, and moral uncertainty, Jake must comport himself in a way that will secure his own freedom, preserve the sasquatch species, and also save his relationship with Jess. Viles writes in a crisp, balanced prose that’s laden with wonderful details, as when he describes the murdered Bigfoot: “She didn’t look like a wild animal, dirt-caked and disheveled from a hard life outdoors, but brought to mind a homely, hardworking mother of six from a mud-puddled trailer park somewhere in the backcountry.” The author attempts to make the story as believable as possible, including historical digressions that explain how a population of sasquatches evolved and survived to the present day. In the end, however, his story is about the ways that people react to the unexpected in their own lives and in the world at large. Although Jake and Jess, as characters, might have benefited from a bit more complexity, they’re generally well drawn, and the plot is satisfying, overall.
An earnest, thoughtful story about an unplanned discovery.Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-59298-769-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Beaver's Pond Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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