BookBrowse Reviews Salvage This World by Michael Farris Smith

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Against the backdrop of a storm-ravaged near-future, Michael Farris Smith explores family, grief, violence and the will to survive when hope seems lost.

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In the near-future universe of Michael Farris Smith's Salvage This World, life-threatening hurricanes batter the United States on a regular basis as a result of climate change. In remote communities across Mississippi and Louisiana, businesses are closing, people are fleeing to safer ground, and those left behind must attempt to struggle on with what little they can salvage. It's in this bleak landscape that we find Jessie and her toddler Jace running from a band of armed men who stormed their home in search of Jessie's partner, Holt. The men were sent by Elser, a religious zealot traveling the region and rounding up followers with her enigmatic sermons. Elser promises salvation in the form of a young girl sent by God with the power to control the storms. But first, Elser wants to find Holt, who has stolen something she needs to make this promise come true. Desperate, Jessie seeks to reunite with her father Wade, from whom she has been estranged for several years.

This setup establishes some of the tangled web Smith's cast of characters find themselves in. Not every thread of the complex story will be neatly resolved, but the strong emotional connection established between reader and characters and the many moments of breathless tension along the way make it consistently engaging.

At its core, Smith's novel is a look at the strength required to face trauma, ranging from the shared trauma of witnessing society crumble around oneself to the deeply personal trauma of loss. When Jessie returns home to her father, for example, she and Wade must deal with the unresolved grief they both still carry from the death of Jessie's mother in childbirth and the resentment this fostered between them. Meanwhile, Elser exploits people's need for hope in the face of the rising climate disaster, preying on their collective fear to fuel belief in her own agenda.

For some readers, the writing style may take some getting used to. Smith regularly employs long, run-on sentences that defy traditional rules of punctuation and structure. While they may seem jarring at first, these reflect the desperation felt by his characters, and the sense that circumstances are spiraling beyond their control with alarming and inescapable momentum. Here, for example, we see Jessie attempting to keep her young son calm during their escape, despite her own undercurrent of dread:

"The wrestling and the anxiety had given her a sweat and she wiped her forehead and mouth and then she scooped up the child and began telling the story of the three little bears as she returned him to the car and buckled his seatbelt and she kept telling it as she cranked the car and as they turned back onto the highway."

Once you become accustomed to the rhythm of the prose, there is much to be found within it. Smith has a knack for painting vivid scenes that juxtapose the enduring beauty of nature with the destruction it — and humans — are capable of. Take this example of an elderly man in a moment of tentative peace before he is drawn into the chaos of some other characters' plight:

"The night air chilled the old man's arms and legs as he listened to the wail of the coyote. Above him a wide open sky and a legion of stars. The moonglow lathered the low fields that stretched out from his small house on the small hill and the cool wind blew through the staggered hardwoods."

In its final act, the narrative flirts with surreal and potentially supernatural elements that might seem out of place to readers in an otherwise starkly realistic novel. And while the lack of clarity surrounding these elements could cause frustration for some, the implementation is subtle enough to encourage different interpretations and debate, ensuring that this is a story that will inspire a strong reaction and linger in the mind.

This review first ran in the May 17, 2023 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.