Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice-for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. A splendid if often gruesome debut, superbly plotted and redolent of the rhythms of Afro-Caribbean speech: “You just don’t let she go, or I go zap the both of allyou one time.”Īre we not men? We are-well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).Ī zombie apocalypse is one thing. Ti-Jeanne learns that Rudy’s captive spirit is her mother-and the only way to free her and defeat Rudy is to smash the bowl.
Tony, meanwhile, finds that Mami would be a compatible donor for the heart, and, unable to escape Rudy, he bashes in Mami’s head and calls the paramedics. Unfortunately, Rudy also commands powerful “obeah”: Trapped in his “duppy bowl” is a ravening spirit that will do his bidding when he feeds it blood. Since Ti-Jeanne can’t resist Tony’s blandishments, Mami reluctantly agrees. Later, empty-handed and terrified of Rudy’s lieutenant, Crack Monkey, Tony pleads for Mami to work magic and help him get out of the city undetected. Word filters down to Rudy to supply the heart, and Tony gets the job: If he can’t find a donor quickly, he’ll have to murder someone and take the heart. Now, Canada’s premier, Catharine Uttley, has an ailing heart, and, for overwhelming political reasons, any replacement organ must come from a human donor.
Weak, untrustworthy Tony was fired from his hospital job because of his drug addiction. The inner city is run by ruthless gangster Rudy Sheldon and his “posse.” Ti-Jeanne Hunter lives with her herbalist grandmother, Mami, and her unnamed child (by Tony, one of Rudy’s mob).
Winner of the publisher’s First Novel Contest (out of nearly 1,000 entries), Hopkinson’s debut evokes Afro-Caribbean magic against a near-future Toronto damaged by riots and neglect and abandoned by all but the most desperate inhabitants.
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