Literary? sci fi? Disease horror? It's certainly horrific. Nevertheless I'd rec this as a historical climate change literary horror diseases horror novella.
The difference between Theodore family and Emeril family is interesting juxtaposition. Both enjoying restrained but one, Emeril, seems closer. Intimate. Or at least emotionally connected instead of cutoff. Same goes for Emeril and Thomas,
Unfortunately a sausage fest. The only women characters that gets screen time is someone who is considered a mother figure, a woman concripted into serving the scientists in a maternal fashion, and someone who has a one night stand. Or maybe that's the point? Maybe the author is making a commentary that it's the patriarchy that takes focus in the world? That woman are excluded from power and influence, and reduced to maternal or sexual figures. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. I'm no professional reviewer for some such magazine, and it's clear she's trying(?) to say something here. Unfortunately it's dumb as hell. But then again, it would be so very White Woman of this white woman author to place women as a whole as helpless victims of the patriarchy. [Specifically white women, because rarely are Black women or women of color included as victims unless it's to uphold white supremacy.]
[side note as I type this up, I want to add in a fourth woman character, if I may dare. The Virgin Mary statue. No she's not a real person. But she does have impact in the story, imo, just as much as the others. Burying the potential cure or confession to why the flies are suddenly full of Rage and plaguing the world? At her feet, another symbolic gesture? Yeah sure, she's a character.] Though having religion as a cure for Male Rage is.... deep sighs. Ok no I'm too tired to get into this shit.
You see, it falls straight into the ecofascism, 'humans are unnatural and evil and thus need to die because we messed up the environment'. And while that gets 1 out of 3 correct, it both completely misses the point of why humans are destructive, and is an utterly shallow idea of humanity as a whole.
Humans are animals. We're a natural part of the world. We're supposed to be here. Our existence is no more evil or unnatural than a tiger killing a deer or a mosquito transmitting malaria. Yes humans have destroyed the environment. But because of capitalism, not because people, collectively, see pristine lands and thought 'we need to commit arson and animal murder here ASAP'. It's capitalism that drives this destruction. Capitalism needs to be destroyed, not humans. We existed before capitalism and we can exist after capitalism.
And it's a shame that this white canadian author does not interrogate why humans do terrible things. You'd think she would, considering how much thought goes into creating a novel.
The Rage thing, is interesting. So in the book the fly is a basic hunter, driven by instincts to feed. But only when she/it(?) encounters humans [a boy, then the man mc] does it change from simpler instincts to plotting worldwide genocide. Specifically, she feels sexual desires, holds off until the Mc and the second woman character is having a one night stand, and then feeds upon the MC while the humans are in coitus. That's when she's infected with the Rage.
I suppose the fly is a symbol of Nature Herself and by being tainted by a man she is transformed into a wrathful entity? Ok, sure. But what's odd to me is that the MC is a victim as well. There is mentioned he was abused at least once by his grandfather [phsyical, not anything else]. Adding in the family dynamic of emotional distance due to [toxic] masculinity, that makes me believe there is some generational abuse happening here. Which makes sense why the MC would feel rage. He's further isolated in a small town, has very few friends, is clearly on the autism spectrum, and has no social network. He's a victim of both capitalism and family. Yes he has a reason for rage. But if that's all Nature Herself takes away from that situation, I don't think it's Nature Herself acting through the fly.
Yeah yeah the author can say all she wants about that, but frankly Gagne's lack of understanding of capitalism makes me want to throw all her commentary out the window. I don't think it's Nature Herself. I think it's Capitalism. NO HEAR ME OUT. Remember the experiments? Granted they weren't doing genetic manipulation, but if the Rage can be without grounding, so can this. The experiments of being manipulated outside a natural environment caused the flies to gain a supernatural sentience and thus became Something Else. That's why they are acting so unnaturally: they too are affected by capitalism like humanity has been.
I'm choosing to interpret it this way because it's a helluva a lot deeper and realistic that some stupid canadian author doing some stale ecofascism. Well bye.
