Review: Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

4.5 Stars bumped because the audiobook was so diverting

In a sci-fi thriller that pokes at so many issues we have faced during the 2020 pandemic, Max Brooks ("World War Z") casts his glance at the aftermath of an eruption of Mount Ranier that obliterates Tacoma, and lahar mudflows block roads and access for hundreds of miles. The event impacts the citizens of Washington State, who promptly face supply chain problems, internet problems, riots, National Guard controls, and the promise of martial law. The government can't cope, FEMA can't deliver, and people can barely contain their anger at the inconvenience of it all. But it especially affects the citizens of Greenloop, a technological and ecological utopian community off the grid in Washington. Dependent upon drone deliveries that are no longer happening, and cellular and internet services that have been cut off as well, Kate Holland, a resident of Greenloop, keeps a journal that describes the fight for survival of the families in the community. At first, they face food rationing but they start using vegetables on hand to plant more beans, potatoes, rice, etc. They start trapping animals like rabbits and even think about hunting for deer. But oddly, easy prey animals start disappearing in the aftermath of the eruption, and even when a puma shows up and looks like it might take a little girl from their community, it looks like it's starving. Where are all the prey animals going? And what is it, after Mostar, and older woman in the village, throws a sharpened javelin at the puma, that kills the injured puma and leaves a gory trail of devastation and shattered bones in the woods after a fight that echoed gruesomely throughout their valley? Kate thinks she knows after seeing what looks like a giant boulder on the road one dusky evening. After the boulder lengthens and reaches a height greater than any human. When she and her husband find giant footprints in ash, they can only assume that what was supposed to be a myth is real. But the problem is that there's a whole family of them. Hunting.

Told against the backdrop of park ranger, and forest and wildlife reports months after Greenloop was cut off from civilization, and in retrospective interviews with Greenloop's founder on shows like NPR/APM's Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal and Fresh Air's Terry Gross, the novel's audiobook is a great, if occasionally gory, diversion. Brooks has researched primate and great ape behavior extensively and pokes at the modern anthropomorphism that makes people foolish about nature. You know, the one Tennyson called "red in tooth and claw." (He had the right of it, Brooks wants to tell you.) The cast is outstanding, Judy Greer particularly standing out in terms of the evolution of Kate's character, from annoying at the outset to a hardened fighter after weeks of learning wartime fighting strategies at Mostar's hands. Max Brooks, Jeff Daniels, Nathan Fillion, Mira Furlan, Kimberly Guerrero, Kate Mulgrew, Steven Weber round out the cast, with Kai Ryssdal and Terry Gross voicing their own roles in the novel.

While a number of aspects of the novel strain credulity (not just that Sasquatch are real), the novel was just so much fun to listen to that I can't help but recommend it for someone looking for a sci-fi thriller. Be sure to go down the checklist of all the sore points from our present pandemic from the standpoint of supply chains, frustration with government services and relief, etc. Brooks obviously wrote this book many months prior to its publication. Prescient doesn't begin to cover its take on our modern over-reliance on convenience and service.

I received a complimentary audiobook edition of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

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