So, yeah. This is the first time I’ve not had anything to say immediately after finishing a book.
However, the length of this review is going to make a liar out of me, because after ruminating for a bit, I now have a lot to say about this book.
It took me the better part of a month to get through Unbury Carol, by Josh Malerman. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had read Malerman’s previous novel, Bird Box, and absolutely loved it. In fact, I read that book in one day. I literally could not put it down. So, when I heard that Malerman had a new novel out, I couldn’t wait to read it and cleared my schedule for the next day or so after it came in at the library.
Yeeeeeeeeah. This time went a bit differently. I slogged through Unbury Carol. I was just not excited to return to most of the story.
The book started off really well. The premise is that this woman, Carol, has a condition that causes her to periodically fall into a coma-like state; she’s as good as dead to the outside world, but in reality she’s awake while under the coma. Carol can hear and sometimes see what’s going on around her, but she can’t move or speak to tell anyone that she’s still alive. (UGH, nightmares.)
Carol’s husband, Dwight, who is aware of her condition and is a schmuck, has decided to use her condition to his advantage the next time she has one of her “episodes” by telling people that she has actually died. His aim is to bury her quickly (yes, alive) and then take all her money.
Meanwhile, some former lover of Carol’s who also knows of her condition is racing to stop Carol from being buried alive. A hitman has been hired to stop the former lover, so, of course, mayhem ensues.
There are also a bunch of other characters who pop up in this story – so many, in fact, that it becomes pretty annoying to have to wade through the less interesting storylines in order to get to the best one, which, in my opinion, is anything having to do with Carol in her coma (“Howltown,” as she calls it), and Dwight, who is slowly cracking under the pressure of trying to bury his wife alive before she wakes up and tells the whole town what a crappy husband he is.
I tried, but I just didn’t give a rat’s patootie about the other storylines. Yes, they all intersect at the end, and I understand that building backstory is important. But I really feel like we could have gotten to that same intersection a) much quicker, and b) without so much information about characters who are either completely dull or completely disturbing.
I feel like Malerman was watching a lot of Westworld while writing this novel. Or Firefly. Or both. This is a Western – which, admittedly, is not my favorite genre – but it’s not your typical John Wayne romp. For example, one of the characters is openly referenced as being homosexual, and there are two women in positions of public authority (a president and a sheriff). Anyone who’s read a history book knows that these things would have raised some serious eyebrows back in “the day,” so this seems like a rather progressive Western society. However, Malerman never addresses these historical oddities, so you’re left wondering why this society is enlightened enough to include gay and women’s rights but is backwards enough to have its good citizens perplexed over why one would store a dead body in a cold cellar instead of a family bedroom.
Another questionable feature of this story is its setting — as in, its actual geographical location. I kept wondering where the heck this novel was taking place the entire time I was reading. All civilization seems to exist around “the Trail,” though we don’t know exactly where this Trail has been blazed. And, some of the town names are so unusual – Mackatoon, Miskaloosa, Ucatinny – that I started wondering if the story were actually taking place on another planet.
No answer there, either. It could be another planet, but it also could just be Canada. The society in which these characters dwell seems really familiar, but always just a little bit “off.” Kind of like you’re watching the world through a mirror — it’s everything you recognize, but it’s turned around and therefore is not exactly the same as what you’re used to. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s something that kept niggling at me as I read, and it detracted from my enjoyment of the story.
Unbury Carol also references events and places – like the aforementioned “The Trail,” as well as “The Illness” – without ever going into what these things are or how they came about. Given Malerman’s love for revealing backstory in this novel, I kept waiting for some info about these events, but it never came. I guess that this technique is pretty typical of dystopian novels — some great, awful thing has occured to make society like this, but it’s only vaguely alluded to because people don’t like to speak of it — but this time the technique really irked me. Especially since it doesn’t seem to be a dystopian world in any other way. So, this was just more distraction while I was trying to wade through the muck to the good stuff.
You should note that this book is particularly gritty, especially anytime the character Smoke enters the picture. I kept imagining him as Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men. Because he’s just that disturbed. I did not like the Smoke parts of the book, and I could have done without them. A lot of attention was put on this character, and I’m a bit surprised about that given the ending of the book. I wish more precious page space had been dedicated to Carol and Dwight., rather than, say, this other dude who keeps setting things (and people) on fire for the pleasure of watching them burn. *shudder*
So! To summarize: despite all the negative things I’ve said…this book wasn’t bad. Definitely not the worst book I’ve ever read, and, again, the parts with Carol and Dwight were really good. Malerman is still a great writer; I just didn’t care for this particular story he wanted to tell. And, I don’t feel it’s as gripping and unique as Bird Box is.
I urge you to give Josh Malerman a try. Just perhaps don’t use Unbury Carol as your first foray into the worlds that this amazing writer can create. However, if you’re a big fan of Westerns (and Westworld and No Country for Old Men) with a soupçon of the supernatural, this may just be the novel you’ve been waiting for.
What about you? Have you read any of Malerman’s works? Did you read Unbury Carol? I’d love to know what you thought about it! Comment below.
And, stay tuned for my inspired recipe coming later this week — Howltown Blackout Cake!
