The Need (2019)
Written by: Helen Phillips
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 260 (Paperback)
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Why I Chose It: This book is an Advance Reader’s Edition that, in all honesty, I plucked off the shelf while on lunch at work. I started to read and got to a point where I figured I might as well finish the whole thing since the book wasn’t very long and I was curious as to where this was all going.
The Premise:
Molly is a paleobotanist who spends her days working at a fossil quarry where she sometimes unearths artifacts that defy understanding, including a controversial Bible that has recently attracted gawkers and conspiracy theorists. By night, she cares for her two young children — four-year-old Viv and one-year-old Ben — while her musician husband is away on tour. She’s frazzled, sleep-deprived, and it seems the edges of her reality blur more each day.
When she hears an intruder in the house, Molly is desperate to keep her children safe. She confronts the figure in the deer mask — and discovers that this stranger knows everything about Molly and her family. Molly fears the most sinister motives even as she reluctantly, terrifyingly, acquiesces to the intruder’s demands. What happens once she learns the true identity of the trespasser is chilling and otherworldy.
No spoilers
Discussion: The cover of this book and, as I delved into it, the way it was written, reminded me of Annihilation. It has this strange, out-of-body, surreal quality to it that can, at times, make it hard to connect with the main character. Initially I wasn’t sure if Molly actually loved her children or if she was indifferent and/or feeling more of a hostage to their needs. Even when I finally did realize that she does love her children, she has a lot of existential or out of the box thoughts regarding things. The sort of inner-inner thoughts you don’t mention to people because they’re going to look at you like maybe something is wrong with you, but that we all have at some point or another. There are just a lot of them here, hence the surreal sensation of it. You go on this journey with Molly, and you may initially wonder (or heck, sometimes wonder throughout the book) if she’s a reliable narrator. Either way, you’re stuck in this fever dream right along with her.
It’s interesting in that just recently Catherynne Valente (go read all her books right now, by the way) and Laura Sebastian (go read hers too) were on Twitter talking about literary fiction, how all fiction is literary, and how there are books that are science fiction/fantasy that get categorized as literary fiction and not SF/F, despite the fact that there is a very clear SF/F element (or multiple elements). I bring this up only because I think this book is a very striking example of that. Because this book is an Advance Reader’s Copy, all of the quotes and accolades placed upon it from other authors, reviewers, and the publisher don’t talk about anything but how it’s an “emotional journey,” or how it’s about “the exhilarating mystery of motherhood.” Everyone is calling it a thriller (genre-busting, even!) and even a “psychologically astute literary novel,” but it seems everyone is missing one very crucial plot element to this book. One that, if it did not exist, I would not be reviewing this book on this site, and in fact the book would not exist.
The book hinges on a wholly science fictional occurrence.
Is that super important to know? No, because you’ll find out what it is within the first 80 pages of the book. Am I dissing the author or anyone over it? Again no. I’m just saying, call a cow a cow. Don’t call it a zebra.
Once you hit that science fictional plot point, a whole new set of questions will come into play. How will Molly handle this? And how the hell will it resolve itself? Is it something that can be resolved? Since the main focus in this story is on the motherhood aspect and what Molly is and isn’t willing to do for herself and her children, that specific SF plot point itself is never explored. And that’s okay because it’s not meant to be. Our focus is on Molly and her unique problem. I can’t really say much more because that’s honestly all the book is, but it’s compelling since you really want your questions answered. Chapters are relatively short, and you keep wondering if Molly’s 4-year-old daughter Viv is going to use her child sixth sense and catch on to something. She certainly does say a lot of weird shit. Granted, kids do tend to say a lot of weird shit but Viv seems to have a high percentage in that area. Then again, I don’t have children, so I could easily be underestimating weird statement percentages.
In Conclusion: It’s a short enough read that you’ll easily be able to finish in a handful of hours (I think I took about 2.5-3 hours), and weirdly tense enough to never leave you feeling bored or at a lull. Though I will say the ending is the sort that that felt ambiguous and leaves you to draw your own conclusions, I’m not mad about it because this book was peculiar enough for it to be acceptable — and I would say almost expected. I’m still not calling it a thriller, though.
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