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==

Guest Blog: B.A. Williamson on Being a Bipolar Writer

On Being a Bipolar Writer

By B.A. Williamson

It’s pretty hard to write this right now. Each sentence is taking a conscious effort. Why? Well, I’m depressed. Unsurprisingly, given the current circumstances. Cancelling all my book launch events and conference panels didn’t help.

There’s not always a reason. Occasionally this just happens. But I can say this depression is “just a phase” without any hint of condescension, because for me, it’s true. I’m bipolar.

Sometimes I just want to lay on the couch and escape. Hours of video games are good for this, though not exactly healthy. I suffer from the emptiness and lethargy that is familiar to millions of sufferers of depression.

What’s less familiar is the other side of the coin—my manic episodes. I have unlimited energy and focus, and can dive into projects for hours on end, and the words just flow. Everything I write is the best thing anyone has ever written. (Impaired judgment is another symptom.)

Manic energy can be a superpower, if harnessed correctly. I can hit any deadline, tackle any obstacle, and breeze through it with the confidence of a narcissistic tiger owner. But as I said, it’s a double-edged sword. The crushing writer’s despair is even worse, and can wipe out all the progress I’ve made.

Writing helps. Getting things out on the page helps. During a depressive episode, it takes a monumental effort to sit down and get moving. But even as I type this, it has become easier. I do feel better. I’m not agonizing over every punctuation mark, and hey, I’ve produced about 250 words so far! Halfway there.

Routines help, too. And outlines. The less you have to think, the lower the energy it takes to get started. I don’t have to think, just check the outline, do what it says, and follow the routine. They also keep me moving at those times when I’m balanced, and don’t have that supply of manic energy to rely on.

Whenever I want to give up before I’ve even started, I tell myself to write three sentences. That’s the rule—three sentences, then you can quit. Anyone can write three sentences. My seven-year-old can write three sentences. And to this day, I’ve never stopped at three sentences. I may only get a few paragraphs, but that’s still overshooting my goal by quite a bit.

Book Reviews: How to Become a Planet, by Nicole Melleby

How to Become a Planet, by Nicole Melleby (Algonquin Young Readers)

Fourteen year old Pluto is an engaging youngster, as passionate about astronomy as she is puzzled by the changes in her life and herself. Within a short period of time, she’d gone from a happy science geek who hangs out with her best friend on the boardwalk where her divorced mother runs the family pizzeria, to a stranger in her own skin. Sometimes she’s paralyzed with the blues, unable to even get out of bed, and the next she’s caught up in senseless fury. It’s as if the mood swings of normally hormonal adolescence have been amped up to pathological proportions. Even with a supportive mother, a psychiatric diagnosis complete with medications and a recommendation for psychotherapy, and a novel way of using astronomical concepts as metaphors for what she’s going through, Pluto is drowning. Not only is she progressively alienating everyone she cares about, she’s stopped caring. Only when her rich city father ramps up the pressure for her to live with him does she formulate a desperate plan: a list of all the things she must do in order to stay at home.

Take medication.

Visit the planetarium with Mom.

Go to Former Best Friend’s Birthday party… and so on.

The list, Pluto believes, will prove that she can return to her old, “true,” “normal” self. But things don’t go as planned. As Pluto embarks upon her tasks, they become even less within her reach. The summer takes one unexpected turn after another.  The tutor whom Pluto was sure she’d hated turns out to be a sympathetic ally, and a new friend with a checklist of their own has a secret Pluto can sympathize with.

Society tends to “other” people with mental illnesses. Historically, they were seen as possessed by devils or cursed by angry gods, as witches, or as eccentric, lazy, or selfish. Treatments ranged from trephination (drilling holes in the patient’s skull), to exorcism to locking the mentally ill in horrific prison-like asylums. Even today, when effective treatments allow many, even those with serious diagnoses, to lead functional lives, the stigma persists. All too often, the person is seen only as their illness, and their insights and contributions therefore dismissed as invalid. Young people are particularly vulnerable to public shaming. It’s hard enough for even “normal” teens to figure out who they are and what they want in life. How to Become a Planet focuses on Pluto as a sympathetic character, a person who is both resourceful and overwhelmed, insightful and confused by changes in herself. Her use of astronomy metaphors is particularly vivid and powerful. Above all, Pluto is a person whose brain chemistry isn’t working quite right, not a diagnosis, and this excellent novel showcases her journey toward a new balance in her life.

As for my personal reaction, I must confess that, although I am an older adult, I gobbled up this book. Pluto’s voice was so compelling, and her struggles so resonant, that the story connected with me on a deep level. Although I did not suffer depression as a teen, I struggled with PTSD as an adult. The times Pluto absolutely cannot motivate herself to engage with her day were chillingly familiar. And, just as Pluto took small steps toward understanding her “new normal,” that’s how it went with me. Besides skillful therapy and appropriate psychiatric medicines, unexpected acts of kindness and new friendships as well as old carried me through the dark times. Pluto comes to accept that she is now and will forever be different from who she was before. I can never go back to the person I was before my own trauma. But I can heal and grow and live a fulfilling life. I wish the same for Pluto. She’s made an excellent start.

Book Reviews: The Lady Astronaut Series

 Mary Robinette’s Lady Astronaut Series: Three Novels and A Novella

 

The Lady Astronaut (novella)

This was the tale that began it all. The Lady Astronaut has the shape and emotional clarity of short fiction while evoking a larger story both in time and space. Thirty years ago, in the early 1950s, a meteorite strike on the Eastern United States ignited a space race. The central character, Elma York, was once a pioneering astronaut, world-famous as The Lady Astronaut of Mars. Now in her 60s, she still yearns to return to space, but the upcoming mission is a one-way trip and her beloved husband has only a short time left to live. Elma’s dilemma is the centerpiece of a beautifully crafted, perfectly balanced story.

 

The Calculating Stars

A concept like The Lady Astronaut cries out for development, and here we journey backward

in time to the origin story. In 1952, history took a different turn when a meteorite obliterated most of the East Coast of the United States. Elma and Nathanael York were among the survivors, eventually making their way to the new capitol and the newly formed International Aerospace Coalition. Here he becomes the lead engineer and she, a computer. They understand all too well the danger that the dust and water vapor thrown into the atmosphere will lead first to a prolonged drop in Earth’s temperatures, and then a runaway greenhouse effect. It’s entirely likely that the world will become uninhabitable. If humanity is to survive, it must be on another planet. They have time, but only if they devote all their resources to it. Thus, the Space Race of the 1960s begins a decade earlier, and with a very different mission.

Elma’s experience as a wartime pilot, along with her genius for mathematical computations, makes her a prime candidate for astronaut training. But this is the 1950s, when sexism as well as racism run rampant and the head of the program is determined to find any excuse to exclude women. A few white women might stand a chance but minorities are out of the running, which is a terrible loss because many of the superb women pilots trained in World War II are Black or Asian.

At this point, the story shifts focus from an alternate history disaster thriller to an examination of how an earlier space race would have run up against the social institutions and prejudices of the day. Racism, attitudes towards women, and antisemitism, are pervasive. Characters range from those, like Elma, who forge alliances and friendships, to rabidly pro-apartheid South African astronaut trainees. Elma’s personal experiences as a Jew and a woman in a male-dominated field make her not only sympathetic in herself but believable in her advocacy of equality. Elma witnesses the struggles of her Black colleagues and friends from the outside, never truly able to understand but willing to acknowledge her limitations. She is all too aware of when she blunders into thinking she understands the lives of her Black friends, even as she is willing to use her white privilege to open doors for them.

As a note: The alliance between Blacks and Jews dates back at least to the 1950s, when both were targets of white supremacist groups like the KKK. In 1958, the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple in Atlanta, Georgia, was bombed by a group calling itself the Confederate Underground. The bombing was in retaliation for the outspoken activism of the senior rabbi, who criticized segregation and advocated for racial equality.

Elma is anything but a cardboard soapbox character. She suffers from a crippling anxiety disorder. I love flawed characters and I cheer them on as they struggle to overcome their challenges. Elma’s social anxiety is severe enough that the physical symptoms threaten to overwhelm her, yet she never gives up. She uses mathematics as a mantra to calm herself. Despite her attempts to avoid being in the spotlight, she’s catapulted into fame with an appearance on “Ask Mr. Wizard” and subsequently became the public face of the space program as “The Lady Astronaut.” When the stresses of public appearances become too much, she seeks medical help and receives a prescription for Miltown (meprobamate), an early anxiolytic drug. The medication is of tremendous help, even though Elma feels obliged to keep it a secret or risk losing her chance at actually going into space.

Book Reviews: The Brutal and Hopeless Beauty of Ballet

 Bright Burning Stars, by A.K. Small (Algonquin Young Readers)

Ballet, for all its ethereal beauty, is brutal physically and even more devastating emotionally as young dancers distort their bodies and vie with one another for the precious few openings that lead to stardom. Nowhere is this pressure-cooker atmosphere more evident than in the boarding schools that feed dancers into prestigious companies. Bright Burning Stars examines the price of such success and asks whether a friendship can survive it.

The story centers on two young women in their final year at the Paris Opera Ballet School. Kate and Marine have been inseparable, best friends, declaring that if they cannot both receive the coveted Prize, neither will have it. As the year progresses, however, pressures mount. Marine, still unable to come to terms with the death of her twin brother who was her inspiration in ballet, descends into anorexia. Kate throws herself into an infatuation with the charismatic senior male dancer, with the result of an unintended pregnancy. Instead of drawing Kate and Marine closer for support, each turn for the worse only seems to widen the gulf between them.

The strengths of the story include strong, flowing prose; engaging characters that change and grow; a vivid depiction of a world that few outside the profession of ballet ever experience; a passionate portrayal of the sensual glory of ballet as an art form; and keen insight into the psychological and physical stresses on dancers. These are significant strengths, indeed, enough to captivate the reader. The narrative kept me turning the pages and caring about the fate of Kate and Marine.

On the down side, watching the two main characters slide into mental illness (for example, eating disorder, severe codependence, obsession, suicidal ideation) was unrelentingly grim. The absence of adult supervision and care was exemplified by the scene, late in the book, where Kate goes to the director with concerns about Marine’s life-threatening symptoms and is essentially blown off and accused of trying to eliminate a rival.

Either these young women are particularly dysfunctional or else the entire realm of ballet is remarkably deficient in healthy relationships. That much I could buy, however, and even the way the school encourages toxic competition at the expense of the health of its students. What was less believable was the ease with which Kate and Marine turned their lives around. Both suffer from serious disorders, neither receives competent psychotherapy – or any counseling at all – and yet a simple “realization” seems sufficient to resolve their problems.