‘The New Wilderness’ / Humanity returns to nature in Diane Cook’s timely ecological tale

 

Diane Cook

BOOKS OF THE YEAR

‘The New Wilderness’: Humanity returns to nature in Diane Cook’s timely ecological tale

Eliot Schrefer
AUGUST 9, 2020

Been to a national park recently? There’s a feeling when, trees at your back and songbirds above, human stresses (like pandemics) seem to fall away. In the United States, whose limited wild spaces are increasingly under threat from pollution and overcrowding, access to wild calmness is becoming a scarce resource. Diane Cook’s inspired debut novel “The New Wilderness” (Harper, 416 pp., ★★★★ out of four) imagines a future in which the wilderness itself has become invite-only.

The New Wilderness by Diane Cook review / A dazzling debut

 

BOOKS OF THE YEAR

The New Wilderness by Diane Cook review – a dazzling debut

A community of strangers attempt to live in a natural world made inhospitable by the climate crisis in this tale of survival and strife

Téa Obreht
Fri 4 Sep 2020 07.30 BST

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n The New Wilderness, Diane Cook’s Booker prize-longlisted debut novel, the end isn’t so much “nigh” as “come and gone”. The cataclysm of civilisation has overwhelmed all but a single natural preserve called the Wilderness State, home to the last remnants of North American wildlife, and a small band of nomads called the Community. We venture into this inhospitable world in the varyingly close and distant third-person company of Bea, a young mother who has made the impossible and inadvisable decision to join an experiment in the Wilderness State in order to save her little daughter, Agnes, from the wasted City, whose poisoned air has been killing her since the day she was born. One of 20 initial volunteers, Bea is part of an experiment allegedly intended to determine whether humans can exist in nature without destroying it. The Community, of which she is a reluctant and pragmatically sceptical member, is tethered to meaning by a set of precious implements – the Cast Iron, the Book Bag, and most importantly the Manual that spells out the rules of their existence, over which the Rangers, to whose whims the experiment and its participants are subject, hold sway.

Booker Prize 2020 / Douglas Stuart may have won but here’s what you need to know about the other shortlisted novels

BOOKS OF THE YEAR

Stuart may have won but here’s what you need to know about the other shortliste novels

Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain may have been declared the 2020 victor but there’s still a whole list of other excellent reads

The winner of 2020’s Booker Prize has been revealed as Douglas Stuart with Shuggie Bain. Never heard of him? Don’t panic. In fact, it’s hardly surprising if this year’s Booker shortlisted names don’t ring any bells as  four of the six novels are debuts, and none of the authors are English.

1. Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi (Hamish Hamilton, £14.99)

Storyline: We are in Pune, India, and Antara’s mother, Tara, who was always difficult, is becoming forgetful. As we delve into her past — her breakup with Antara’s father and going to live in an ashram with a small child in tow — we come to understand the effects of her neglectful parenting on Antara, and why Antara is powerless to exact revenge.  

Author vital stats: Doshi, 38, lives in Dubai, grew up in New Jersey and has an MA from UCL in History of Art. This is her debut novel.

What to say: Doshi’s inspiration for the ashram scenes came from her own family members, of whom many were followers of cult guru, Osho Rajneesh.

What not so say: It’s hard to warm to any of the characters.  

Any good? I loved the combination of spite and sensuality, and she really nails the love-hate, mother-daughter vibe.

2. The New Wilderness by Diane Cook (Oneworld, £16.99)

Storyline: Bea has left the toxically polluted City with husband Glen and ailing daughter Agnes to live in the unspoilt Wilderness, so that Agnes can recover. Together with twenty other volunteers they must learn to survive without impacting on nature, but things fall apart, obviously.

Author vital stats: A debut novel from Brooklyn-based Cook, 44, who has won awards for her short story collection, Man V. Nature.  

What to say: No surprise that it’s been snapped up by Warner Bros TV for a series.

What not to say: How come the women still have tampons after years of living in the wild?  

Any good? Preposterous! It’s a Hunger Games-style saga masquerading as a worthy climate change novel, but strangely and compulsively readable.

3. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (Picador, £14.99)

Storyline: Little Shuggie grows up poor on a Glasgow estate in the Eighties, knowing he’s “different” from other boys. He has a charismatic but alcoholic mother and an abusive, philandering father, but must eventually learn that his mum will never “get better”, however hard he tries to help her.  

Author vital stats: A largely autobiographical debut. Glasgow-born Stuart, 44, used to design menswear for Calvin Klein, and lives in New York.  

What to say: The lows of alcoholism have rarely been better described.  

What not to say: Stuart writes that  his characters are “sat at” rather than “sitting at” which is commonplace, but still crass.  

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Any good? An emotional battering ram; storytelling straight from the heart.  I absolutely loved it and think the judges have made the right decision.  

4. The Shadow King  by Maaza Mengiste (Canongate, £9.99)

Storyline: An ambitious feminist take on the masculine war novel, opens with recently-orphaned Hirut going to work as a maid for Kidane and Aster and eventually joining an army of woman soldiers, led by the feisty Aster, to fight for an absent Haile Selassie against the Italians.  

Author vital stats: A second novel. Mengiste, 46, was born in Addis Ababa, left aged four with her family, studied as a Fulbright Scholar in Italy and then creative writing at NYU.  

What to say: It is fiction, but was inspired by Mengiste’s great-grandmother.

What not to say: All those windy, bloated sentences and use of the present tense are exhausting.

Any good? Disappointing. There’s a great story in there somewhere, but it was uphill work to uncover it.  

5. This Mournable Body  by Tsitsi Dangarembga (Faber, £8.99)

Storyline: The conclusion to this semi-autobiographical trilogy, begun in 1988, is set in Harare at the end of the Nineties. Tambu is now middle-aged, living in a hostel and down on her luck, having quit her job as an advertising copywriter. We follow her attempting to improve her life, seizing on any opportunities that come her way.  

Author’s vital stats: Zimbabwean Dangarembga, 61, is a playwright and film maker. She was arrested earlier this year for protesting in support of the Movement for Democratic Change.

What to say: English PEN and others are campaigning to have the charges against her dropped.  

What not to say: Narrating in the second person present tense is annoying.  

Any good? With its underwhelming storyline and difficult prose style, I’m afraid I struggled to finish it.  

6. Real Life by Brandon Taylor (Daunt Books, £9.99)

Storyline: Wallace is a black, gay biochemist from Alabama studying nematodes at a Midwestern university, where all his peers are white. His sense of displacement and insecurity is exacerbated by the fact his father died recently and he was abused as a child.

Author vital stats: An autobiographical debut. Alabama-born, former biochemist Taylor, 31, is a staff writer for Literary Hub, and attended the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop.  

What to say: Can you believe he wrote the book in only five weeks?  

What not to say: How raw and visceral. Apparently Taylor hates his work being described thus.

Any good? I couldn’t get past the tone of resentment, which is both a strength, but also ultimately the book’s weakness. 

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