Book Review: Mothtown, A Brilliant Second Novel from Caroline Hardaker

 Mothtown, by Caroline Hardaker (Angry Robot)

Caroline Hardaker’s second novel, like the first, presents a challenging read. It asks the reader to keep critical faculties, human sympathy, and a healthy degree of scientific skepticism onboard as the story unfolds. It’s been described as a cross between horror and mainstream, but I don’t think it’s horror in the usual sense, any more than Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is. It might better be described as a psychological mystery. Whether the fantasy/science-fictional/surreal elements truly exist in Hardaker’s world or whether they are creations in the mind of the main character is, ultimately, a judgment call for the reader to make.

The story alternates between “After,” in which the adult protagonist races desperately through a sinister wilderness, and “Before,” looking back to his childhood. The “Before” section opens on an apparently dystopic world in which people go missing and floral tributes appear on all-too-many doorsteps and street corners. This is the first part of the mystery: What is going on? Are people really vanishing? If so, where are they going? If not, where are their bodies?

Although his parents try hard to protect him and his sister, ten-year-old David believes something more is going on. When his beloved grandfather--a Professor of Superstring Theory and Dark Matter Studies--disappears and his parents insist the old man is dead, David refuses to believe them. He becomes convinced that his grandfather has found a door into another world, a place he truly belongs. And David is determined to find such a world for himself.

David faces many difficulties in the ordinary world. He’s barely verbal, doesn’t pick up on social cues or interact with others, and seems oblivious to the feelings of others. His mother’s increasingly anxious about the “disappearances,” and despite this, David takes off on his own to visit the cemetery where his grandfather is buried. As a mother myself, I was furious at his lack of sensitivity. Fortunately, Hardaker’s skill kept me reading long enough to ask the question, “What is going on with this kid?”

David is more than an unreliable narrator, although he is that, too, and herein lies the second part of the mystery. What, indeed, is going on with him? Can we trust anything he says about himself, the world, other characters, his grandfather—anything?

Can we read between and behind the lines to discover the real story?

==SPOILER ALERT==

About the time I was incensed with David’s insensitivity, I started noticing clues in his behavior, thoughts, and perceptions. At first, these clues were subtle and David didn’t seem all that different from any other shy, introverted child “on the spectrum.” Combining this with the half-truths and outright lies parents often tell their children under the pretext of “protecting them,” and the question of whether people are truly disappearing becomes even fuzzier. Early in the book, there’s a news report of the discovery of the bodies of twelve people who were reported missing, found on a mountainside with “unidentifiable scientific apparatus,” suggesting they were on the hunt for a “door,” and more references later. David’s “mudmen,” whom he believes to be on the brink of disappearance, could just as easily be ordinary strangers, disaffected and depressed by the “Modern Problem.” His grandfather’s seminal work, Hidden Worlds, which David takes as a roadmap, has been dismissed by his scientific colleagues as nonsense.  As I went on, I began to question whether what David reported was indeed what was objectively true.

There’s a time jump to David as a young adult in his mid-20s. At first, it seems he is functioning better. He has a job and a girlfriend, even if he’s broken ties with his family, including the sister he once adored. But as new clues emerged, I came to question that picture. He watches his girlfriend in the shop across the street but never speaks to her, even about his desire to “go home.” I noticed instances of paranoid ideation, social isolation, and dissociation. Then, as David comes under the sway of an outright cult and decompensates progressively, malnutrition, self-harm, stealing, obsessive/compulsive behavior, and outright delusions became more and more prominent. For example, it turns out that not only is the girl not his girlfriend, but she’s taken out a restraining order against him. He walks away from his job, becomes progressively weaker as he starves, and lives in utter squalor, in a “cocoon” he’s constructed from materials stolen and scrounged, cemented together with his own blood. In the end, there was no doubt in my mind what was going on. I was glad that his family does an intervention to get him into treatment and that there are hints he is at last willing to start talking.

I found the conclusion not only highly satisfying but filled with hope.