The New Wilderness by Diane Cook
In her debut novel, The New Wilderness, Diane Cook bravely explores an intimate and difficult mother-daughter relationship set in a future dystopian world ravaged by climate change. Bea’s five-year-old daughter Agnes is dying from the smog suffocating “the City.” Agnes’s doctor suggests palliative care, understanding that there is nothing she can do because the child needs “different air.” Bea and her husband, Glen, find a last-ditch attempt at saving Agnes: a scientific study looking to discover if human beings can live in the wilderness without ruining it. A group of twenty subjects are taken to “the Wilderness State,” the last remaining wilderness (in the world, perhaps). They are given a “Manual” with strict rules regulating their nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
The reader meets Bea, Agnes, Glen, and the other subjects of the study (cumulatively referred to as “the Community”) about three years into their excursion. Agnes is eight years old, and no longer choking on the air around her, spitting blood and barely surviving. Free of illness, she is coming into her own in this strange environment: a dangerous and stunning Wilderness bordered by barbed wire fences, access roads, and poisonous rivers, governed by a changing “Administration”, pestering “Rangers”, and the Community’s own ideals and traditions. Like any mother, Bea struggles with conflicting feelings of losing her daughter as she grows older and more independent, and pride in her daughter’s strength and boldness, especially in contrast to how sick and weak she had once been. Agnes struggles with conflicting feelings of needing to be self-sufficient, while still wanting to feel mothered and cared for, wanting to be an adult, but missing being a child. These very normal mother-daughter themes are made more complex by the Wilderness State looming in the background.
While The New Wilderness was a great read, part of me wonders why it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. First, I considered Cook’s writing style. The book is certainly well written; however, it did not come across quite as “literary” as the other shortlisted novels. By that I mean The New Wilderness is more commercial in its writing style. Cook doesn’t utilize sophisticated metaphors as often as the other shortlisted authors so far have. She does use foreshadowing, but perhaps because of the genre, it isn’t quite as subtle as it is in the other shortlisted novels. In my opinion, her writing style most closely resembled Brandon Taylor’s, which I don’t think is a coincidence considering they are the two shortlisted Americans. She heavily relies on allegory, but without employing other literary devices it can fall a little flat and heavy-handed. Overall, I think the genre and length of the novel greatly hindered its ability to be as “literary” as the other shortlisted novels. As I’ll discuss a little later, I think she should have turned this novel into a trilogy, and perhaps with more pages she could have had the space to support her allegories with better developed characters and a wider variety of literary devices. In my opinion, the novel’s “literary-ness” is not what earned its shortlisting.
Second, I considered the characters. Bea and Agnes are both unique and were interesting to read about. Their mother-daughter dynamic had both relatable and unexpected elements that kept their relationship from being stereotypical or boring. However, I don’t think their relationship was written about with the same depth that Douglas Stuart wrote about Agnes and Shuggie’s relationship. I think this partially has to do with the genre and timing of Cook’s novel. The New Wilderness is shorter than Shuggie Bain and couldn’t dedicate the same number of pages to character development because dystopian novels must focus so much on setting and background. Cook, an environmental writer, also preferred nature and scenery descriptions to character description, and rarely focused on characters physical appearance. This made the novel less immersive to me, as I am a very visual reader and like to create images of the story in my mind as I read along. In terms of non-main characters, the novel disappointed me. I thought that side characters were not fleshed out and came across as flat or not realistic. The analysis of Bea and Agnes’s complicated mother-daughter relationship is likely part of why the novel was shortlisted.
Third, I considered the plotline of the novel. I enjoyed the plotline and thought it was interesting and compelling, however I think the characters and themes in the novel deserved more space. In my opinion, The New Wilderness should have been a trilogy. Because, as I’ve asserted, the novel comes across more commercial than literary, Cook should have considered a more spread-out series that dives deeper into different characters backgrounds, provides more details about the fall of the society depicted in the novel, and pushes further into the past and future of the story. The New Wilderness is set to be made into a TV show, with Cook as an Executive Producer, and I’m hopeful that the TV series will expand on her book. I’m wondering if the story may do better as a TV show. Since the physical descriptions of the land (that Cook overly focuses on) and the characters (that Cook basically ignores) will be provided by the screen, there may be more room for character and plot development, as while as theme analysis in a TV series. Plus, if the show does well, the story could continue past the novel’s ending. The New Wilderness did not feel complete in it’s ending; it left me wanting more, but the novel is not well set up for a sequel. Shuggie Bain, on the other hand, felt like a completed story at it’s ending. It felt satisfying to finish. While I’d gladly read a sequel featuring Shuggie as an adult, it isn’t necessary for me to feel satisfied with Shuggie Bain on its own.
Lastly, I considered the content of the novel. As discussed above, the mother-daughter relationship explored in the novel most likely played a role in its selection. All four of the shortlisted novels I’ve read so far analyzed parent-child relationships, and in three of the four novels the focus has been on the mother-child relationship. Clearly, this was a favorite theme of the 2020 Booker Prize judges. Shuggie Bain and This Mournable Body (by Tsitsi Dangarembga) both explored mother-child bonds within the historical context of two (very different) nations struggling economically, politically, and culturally. Cook’s novel contained economic, political, and cultural themes outside of a historical context and instead in a fictional setting. I think plotlines, settings, and characters that open up discussion about economics, politics, and culture are favored by the Booker Prize judges, especially if they are relevant to modern struggles. For example, addiction in Shuggie Bain, sexuality in Shuggie Bain and Real Life (by Brandon Taylor), racism in Real Life and This Mournable Body, and political upheaval in This Mournable Body and The New Wilderness. There is one theme that the other shortlisted novels (thus far) have neglected completely that is extremely relevant to modern life, and that is climate change. Climate change and mother-daughter relationships are the main themes of The New Wilderness. I believe that the inclusion of climate change in Cook’s novel was perhaps the main reason it was selected for the Booker Prize shortlist, as it is a modern, hot-button, and important topic.
So, while The New Wilderness was perhaps somewhat lacking in literary appeal and character development, I believe it was chosen for the 2020 Booker Prize shortlist because of it’s focus on climate change. I’ll add that, most of the time, it seems popular genre books are less likely to be shortlisted, but in this case, I think being a dystopian novel helped Cook. There is no denying the world has been in utter turmoil, at least since 2020, but for many individuals and nations it’s been long before that. I believe most people struggle, at least somewhat, to continue on with life like everything is “normal” when nothing feels normal. For some people, it’s comforting or validating to read a novel where the setting looks as dire as our world sometimes feels. For others, it may be soothing to read about a place that is far worse off. But most importantly, the novel will (hopefully) compel readers to consider how our society can avoid creating such a terrible environment that mothers are forced to risk their children’s lives in order to save their children’s lives.
