We hope for progress, and believe this means a better future. Instead, things get progressively worse. Sarah Langan begins A Better World by showing us just how quickly and effectively things can go downhill from today. She calls it The Great Unwinding, and it reads like a fast-motion slideshow of the CNN home page over the next X years. We meet the Farmer-Bowen family as the hull of their ship-of-state is scraping bottom. The father of the family, Russell, manages to land a job in one of the new “Company towns” that dot America. He and the family are moving to Plymouth Valley, hoping for a golden ticket, and ready for the good life.
What unfolds, as seen by Linda, Russell’s wife, is a powerful vision of social horror. Upon arrival, they follow their hearts and try to fit in to the surprisingly new world of Plymouth Valley. Their life heretofore, on the outside, has not been great. But, while Plymouth Valley offers luxurious housing and great food, the people are standoffish. Langan’s evocation of social unease in a new neighborhood is masterful. She re-writes the rules of the housing associations of today and subtly ups the creepiness to a level that readers will find remarkable. Her ability to do this and involve readers in the lives of the Farmer-Bowens turns the novel into a hand-wringing nightmare and results in a book that demands to be read late into the night.
The power of pure fear is a constant companion in A Better World. It’s amazingly inventive in terms of crafting narrative tension, eschewing the usual unusual and turning everyday events into ominous portents of terror. But the author also has a blast simultaneously satirizing the short-sighted selfishness that births every sort of injustice. She even offers corporate handouts that are hilarious in their childish rah-rah, join-our-club support of The Hollow, a corporate credo-cum-religion that is the infernal engine of Plymouth Valley. Of course, what is quite funny is also quite creepy.
Reading A Better World will make you think as well as turn the pages. Langan’s prose approach allows her to craft the Farmer-Bowens as a sort of meta-character. She gives the individual members of the family entwining arcs, offering readers a vision of how forces outside the family change the nature of the family as a whole. It’s a low-key literary twist that lingers long after the covers are closed.
Prepare for a late night when you pick up A Better World, and a classy creeped-out hangover when you finish. There’s true fear here, and Langan’s re-imagination of ordinary is sticky. You may think Who are these people? upon meeting someone new. Oh right. If I stay, they might be me.
Sarah Langan is not creepy or weird. She’s a straight shooter, and obviously the brilliant mind behind this terrifying novel. Here’s a link to our conversation, and a bit of advice; have your copy of A Better World to hand, the better to begin your journey to the dark heart of the normal sooner rather than later. Hope it’s not too late. You can always hope.
Narrative Species 