Creatures of Want and Ruin

sigh Well. That sure was a book.

See, that's the thing. It's very obvious that Molly Tanzer is a very capable writer. Her primary characters are well-drawn, she's clearly devoted to capturing the atmosphere of the setting and the period. Tanzer wrote this story as well as she could, but what she was writing just wasn't very interesting.

Ellie is a bootlegger trying to make enough money to send her brother to medical school. Fin (I was deeply confused about this nickname for a while, its short for Delphine and pronounced as such) is a bookish upper class woman who's husband inherited a bunch of money and wants to spend it all partying. Somehow Ellie and Fin and some people they know get tangled up in a plot by a group of racists lead by a so-called reverend to take back Long Island, or whatever, and Reverend Hunter has been using the essence of demon to help him do it. It takes a good long while to get to that point, even though all of the pieces are telegraphed very plainly. It felt very paint-by-numbers with little heart, and by the end I was just going through the motions with them.

I think the main problem is that none of the characters are really going anywhere. Ellie has a goal - send her brother to medical school - and at first that is used pretty well to get her into the good kind of trouble the story needed her to be in. But after that the character's own motivations have to take over - it can't always just be about saving everyone else. But I don't really know how this journey was meaningful to Ellie at all. There was no path she was taking, no change she really experienced. She and her fiance, Gabriel, learn some stuff about their relationship, but honestly I thought they were far too good communicators for two people their age and era. Their emotional maturity made for rather stale reading. I guess she learns to separate herself from the toxicity in her family but, like, she was going to move out anyway.

I think the only thing that I really know about Ellie is that she is really freaking horny, and while I appreciate the healthy polyamory on display here, Ellie ogling other men when she had a perfectly wonderful fiance at home felt very distracting and pointless. It was completely unnecessary for Jones, her cop contact, to be a love interest. Nothing is really revealed about Ellie through their relationship, and its just left hanging at the end.

Fin faired a little better. She had a history that lead to her understanding of the whole demon thing that was unique. She also had a rather unusual home life going on, with her husband and their friends constantly partying and likely sleeping together, while she gets increasingly ignored. The vibe of the scenes with her husband and their friends gave me the impression that they were going to be involved in the overarching plot somehow but, spoiler, apparently they were just set dressing. Bobbie, Fin's former close friend who seemed content to be slowly stealing Fin's husband and upper class life, in particularly had a rather devious vibe to her that I thought was going somewhere. Apparently, a vibe was all it was.

Yeah, I don't know, all I can feel in regards to this book is one big shrug. The characters were there, they did stuff, they used slang that made them sound like they were from the 1920s but mostly they were all way too smart and well-balanced to make the conflicts interesting. The villain was barely even there. There was a lot of forced chemistry, particularly between Fin and Ellie. Tanzer seemed to like mentioning their girlish giggling when a joke or a sarcastic remark or something would have gone a lot further to show they enjoyed each other's sense of humor. I'm giving this two stars because, I mean, it was very readable (as stated Tanzer, is a very good writer), and goddamn I loved Creatures of Will and Temper so much. But the charm and cleverness and style of that book is nowhere near here.

This review is based on an ARC given to me for free by the publisher via Edelweiss. This does not in any way affect my review.This novel is slated for release on November 13, 2018.

Despite those Lovecraftian trappings, this novel goes in the complete opposite direction from Lovecraft???s politics. Instead, it tackles the notion of privilege, and the many, varied ways it can harm others ??? sometimes in ways that a person can be aware of, but oftentimes, in ways a person is not aware of. This is a thematic thread that runs through the novel, played out in the way characters talk to and interact with one another, but also in the historical context and the worldbuilding. Someone always has some ideas about the way the world should be ??? usually in a manner that privileges them, even at the expense of others. That is why the rich can afford to throw boozy parties while the less affluent need to scrimp and save for a few tubs of ice cream; why a man can operate a fishing trawler whereas his own daughter, no matter how strong and competent, can???t do the same without ???damaging her reputation???; and why a black woman, no matter how intelligent, can???t escape the cycle of systemic poverty and racism that keep her and others like her from living a better life. This novel, then, shows that it is important to check one???s privilege before making assumptions, because what one sees as right or normal might not be right or normal when viewed within a wider context.

In line with that, there is a second, parallel theme: that of taking action. Knowing something is wrong is one thing, but just knowing and not doing anything about it is just as bad as actually doing that wrong thing. If the world is to change for the better, there needs to be more than just pretty platitudes and positive statements: there needs to be concrete action. Of course, that kind of action is not easy nor comfortable ??? but then again, so is choosing to throw off one???s comfortable worldview in favour of the truth.