Mountain Devil

Recommend: Yes

There is something going on. This is my fourth green book in a matter of months.

There’s a publisher out there somewhere that understands the psychological appeal of these Kermit green covers.

Bad Nature might have a bland title, a strange subtitle (This was the plan: drive West, find Dad, kill Dad), an author who sounds like they are using a stage name inspired by a mermaid, and a brutal cover image of a naked woman brandishing a gun with a head rolling off to the side, but it was actually really good.

Hester, our narrator, has just been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. The dire prognosis doesn’t really phase her though. There’s no moping around, calling another doctor to get a second option. Rather, the diagnosis is a call to arms for Hester to get her affairs in order. To tidy up loose ends. To do that, she must travel from New York to California. Her father lives in California. She must kill her father. The subtitle is not metaphorical.

It all sounds a bit much. But it’s really not. There’s a tiny cast of characters drawn with nuance and a simple plot that is expertly paced. Courage makes it seem easy.

Her writing is very well focused. Every metaphor used relates directly to the narrator and her life, and is there for a purpose. Courage manages to hold a consistently astringent tone for all of the 300 pages without making the book feel irrelevant, a difficult feat. The protagonist is dying and doesn’t give a fuck and she will see the world for what it is and herself for what she is because why not? It’s all over soon anyway.

I can be fearful of road trip novels. They often sprawl into a sentimental, repetitious mess (see: Off the Books) but Courage is only guilty of that right in the last ten pages. It’s her first novel, I’ll forgive her those ten pages. The first half of the map is plotted out for Hester to reconnect with her few previous relationships before she dies. There’s a college boyfriend in Pittsburgh and a highschool best friend in Chicago. Neither provide much emotional catharsis, so then it’s back to the main quest: drive to California and kill Dad.

I think he sensed I was nearing the end of something, and he didn’t like that, didn’t like that my life was sad enough that he was on the list of final visitations I’d make on my maudlin farewell tour.

Along the way Hester has picked up John, a young, kind-of street bum protesting American industrial companies in a completely useless, time-wasting way. He takes photographs of abandoned chemical masses. John steadily becomes a main character, a hitchhiker turned offbeat driving buddy. It’s a testament to Courage’s understanding of her protagonist that Hester and John never hook up. It’s a relationship that is platonic but filled with intensity still. Hester will die and John will not and that is enough drama.

Finally he looked back at me. I could tell even in the dark our eyes were meeting and his were feral. My adrenaline spiked like we were about to fight or fuck, but then he stood tall and opened the car door and got inside in a crinkle of fabric and metal and that was it; the moment was over.

Bad Nature exceeded my expectations, and some. It was fun and different enough and very well written. The back cover describes this book as one for fans of Ottessa Moshfegh but it’s actually way better than all of her work post Year of Relaxation. A very impressive debut from Ariel Courage.