Rena Mason

"At night, down-to-earth Las Vegas socialite, Stacy Troy, dreams that everyone is dead. Nosebleeds and head-splitting alarms only she can hear become a regular occurrence. In her nightmares, Stacy dismembers bodies, stuffs them into a shopping cart, then takes them two at a time to the pile where she will burn them and say her last goodbyes. Waking nightly to her own screams, Stacy is convinced she's on the brink of a mid-life crisis and begins secretly seeing a psychiatrist. But as eerie as Dr. Light may be, his treatments work and her circumstances improve. Until the nightmares return with a vengeance taking on a life of their own. Still uncertain what to believe, Stacy carries on living the only life she remembers. But her other, nocturnal world refuses to die. The images it shows her hold clues that lead her to a shocking discovery, threatening to unravel the last thread of her sanity and Stacy must make a heartrending decision ... Before her post-apocalyptic nightmares come true"--Page 4 of cover.

The Evolutionist

Bryan Alexander

I continue my quest for great contemporary horror novels with The Evolutionist, by Rena Mason. And what a strange book it is.

The book begins by narrating the life of an upperclass Las Vegas housewife. She describes going to lunches, shopping, arranging parties, new clothes, meeting girlfriends, observations about her husband and son. It's a bit like Sex and the City crossed with Desperate Housewives, and made me check then recheck the book's description and gory cover to be sure I was reading the same book.

Then the narrator describes using an axe to cut up the broken corpses of her family and neighbors, while the end of the world scours skies above.

Ah.

I was reading the right book after all.

The first half of The Evolutionist is all about these switching narratives and genres. It turns out Stacy Troy is actually a housewife, but is having vivid nightmares, which seem to be sparking hallucinations. I admire Mason's remix ambition here, and enjoyed the combination for a while.

The second half, well, is spoiler time. (view spoiler)[Mason ups the ante by adding a third, then fourth genre. Her protagonist starts seeing a shrink, with the ludicrous name of Dr. Light. Troy's hallucinations seem more real. Light helps her see these as evidence of past lives, taking The Evolutionist into fantasy territory. The novel then slides quickly past that into science fiction, as we learn that Light and Troy are not reincarnated Egyptian royalty, but aliens made out of dark matter. A very long time ago Troy decided to play human in order to see what childbirth was all about, and got stuck in the role. In the present day Light and the other aliens pry her out, just as the Earth gets hit by a burst of world-killing gamma radiation. The End. (hide spoiler)]

So in her first novel Rena Mason ambitiously tackles a group of genres, shuttling her protagonist among them. 

What to make of it... several thoughts.

As a horror novel, The Evolutionist has some scenes of note, but that's not what it's really about. Once again I'm disappointed in my quest.

As a novel, it's uneven. I was impressed at how much Mason seeks to cover. I liked the way some of the pieces played against each other. As the spouse and father of emergency services people, I appreciated her solid descriptions of medical situations. Some of the second half's scenes are well done (see spoilers above). I admire the choice of protagonist in these genres, becoming neither a horror movie's tough final girl nor a rebel shaking off her 1% housewife life. 

But it's both too long and too thing. The novel repeats similar scenes and events with scant iteration. We don't need to see Troy's son being distracted that many times, or her husband worrying about her health, or the intrusive tones sounding off again and again. On the flipside, several important plotlines develop without sufficient preparation. For example, (view spoiler)[the heroine's husband's betrayal comes without much reason, although Stacy's dislike of him could help explain a souring of the marriage, although that isn't developed. Her friends' various changes (affairs, suicide attempt, etc) appear at a distance, without depth or much impact. (hide spoiler)]

Moreover, I can only come up with so much sympathy and interest in the main character. Stacy Troy is a member of the socio-economic elite, and loves this position without much awareness or doubt. She's snobbish about products which seem low cost, never describes professional or domestic work (both seemingly outsourced), never has any money issues, and yet complains about the difficulties of this life. Her only friends are the same way, just more obnoxious, verging on Absolutely Fabulous territory. They read awful-sounding books (Memoirs of a Spa Junkie), and are more interested in the decor of their reading salon than in actually talking about what they've supposedly read. This group of women actually try out for a reality tv show about elite housewives. There are hints of a more complex character in her parents, who seem to come from another world, but the story doesn't explore this. Stacy's final developments (spoilerized above) actually do little to alter her personality. In fact, her 1% status and sense of superiority simply increases.

I was struck by the narrative's gynocentrism, and wondered where that was going to end up. Most of her social contacts are women. Stacy's interests are perfectly in line with contemporary, stereotypical gender roles: shopping, clothes, motherhood, parties, conversations with female friends (often about men). The novel's ultimate plot points concern Stacy and motherhood. The few male characters get little time on the page, and usually turn out badly or anomalously: (view spoiler)[husband a betrayer, hospital patient a brutal attacker, psychologist a gender-less alien. Stacy's father is shunted off stage in favor of her mother. (hide spoiler)] 

I'm not sure what this strategy entails, in the end. Is the gender focus entirely an effect of the protagonist's character? If so, what should we learn from it? Or is The Evolutionist offering a critique of modern life? If so, that doesn't seem to work with the book's second half. Or, more prosaically, did I just read a novel intended for a female audience? I'm not sure. Chick lit's not my thing, and I can't tell to what extent Evolutionist is supposed to fall into that category.

Or not. Perhaps the novel's conclusion and its characterization suggest another reading. Spoilerized accordingly: (view spoiler)[the objective reality of the alien apocalypse plot isn't clearly established. Nobody else learns of the aliens. No evidence for them appears. The only evidence for the end of the world is a few weather reports and Stacy's son's nosebleeds. Dr. Light never connects with any other character in Stacy's normal life. Could this all be a delusion? Does she upend and flee her life as the result of fantasies? Maybe the cover painting is more appropriate than I thought. Stacy Troy cuts herself off. I can't find any other readers making this argument. (hide spoiler)]

So The Evolutionist is an unusual horror novel. Readers who've made it to this point in my review will probably have a good idea by now if it's worth their reading. I'm intrigued by Rena Mason's first book, and will look for her next stories.

The Evolutionist

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