Smoke Season by Carrie-Edmund Laben: Review & Analysis
Built from pieces of all my favourite things
Introduction & Other Notable Books
Would you believe that I've had four different book club meetings since my last article, and that I can only choose one to write about in depth today? Horrifying. Thankfully, I've already written circles around and even made a video about one of them—This is How You Lose the Time War—though I may still get around to giving it the review & analysis treatment one day.
The River Has Roots is also by Time War's Amal El-Mohtar, and is a lovely little fairytale-esque story that's got a lot of imagination and heart behind it and is an easy recommend in its own right.
To The Moon And Back by Eliana Ramage charmed me as the story of an Indigenous lesbian woman's life pursuing her goal of becoming an astronaut. I think it raised an interesting point about the unfortunate perceived dichotomy between space exploration and environmentalism, though it could've gone further to show that both are possible in a world where money isn't hoarded or spent exorbitantly on other pointless things. Most of the rest of the book club may not have agreed with me about this one, but that's okay.
I'm also currently reading two highly anticipated books: Blacktail is Scott Hawkins' first book since The Library at Mount Char (another absolute favourite of mine), and will certainly be getting it's own spotlight soon; as will R.F. Kuang's new Taipei Story, given that my two posts about her and Katabasis are by far my most successful (*shrug*).
Anyway, Smoke Season! It's a new release from a small publisher and a debut author, with all of four Goodreads ratings to its name at the time of writing. (Don't worry, all-powerful SEO doesn't own me entirely.) I went in with zero expectations and was pleasantly surprised!
But it's hard to ask someone else to do that off of nothing, so I'll give you this before getting into spoilers below: Smoke Season is a hazy fever dream about getting lost and finding oneself; about choosing family and connections and curiosity. (As folks at the book club said, quite a palate cleanser after the previous week's You Weren't Meant to be Human.)
You can purchase Smoke Season from the publisher here if it's not yet at your local bookstore or library. Spoilers ahead in my review & analysis of the book.
Smoke Season
Summary
The novel opens with our point-of-view character Justin standing anxiously on his Aunt Regan’s doorstep. They haven’t seen each other in years, and he has a question he feels foolish yet desperate to ask: did he ever have a sister named Helen, who his mom kept caged up until Regan came and adopted her?
Turns out yes! And that Justin only just remembered this because he got a phone call asking about Helen. He and Regan (who hasn’t seen her in years, despite having raised her) begin to follow Helen’s footsteps, ultimately stumbling onto an aimless and confounding podcast she hosts alongside Diane, whose mother says was drugged and kidnapped by Helen.
One night, Justin travels across the country in his dreams and joins Helen’s followers: hippies and activists who gather together to listen to the podcast on Justin’s laptop with every new release. Justin himself falls for Adrian, who reveals himself to also be Diane.
Then we learn that evil scientist Dr. Unrath managed to torture a guy named Von into puking up his homosexuality in the form of a baby, who grew up to become Helen. And that she exists outside time and space, because Unrath’s keeping her out through Von. But he’s losing steam, so he needs to force Diane to take Von’s place (by violently rejecting her bigender/trans nature, presumably).
But Justin persuades Von to let go before the transfer can complete, allowing Helen into the world and stopping Unrath’s plan in its tracks. More people show up, believing in Helen's cause. The end.
Comparisons & Confusion
As I hinted in the subtitle, Smoke Season evokes a lot of pieces from other favourite stories of mine. If my description sounded like a batshit fever dream, that's exactly what (most of) the book's going for—straight out of Brand New Cherry Flavor, Fever Dream, or Negative Space and The Bee Sting to a certain degree. We simply follow Justin as he ingests far too much caffeine and alcohol and stumbles forward without much detail or context, in a surreal and strange world meant to look like our own.
Tracking Helen's steps gave me an echo of King Sorrow, Helen's nature as an otherworldly god-like being beautifully mirrored J.E.D.D. Mason from Terra Ignota, Helen's followers beliefs that people must continually choose to stay and do good reflects Aenea's "choose again" from Hyperion, and the struggle of Unrath against Helen reminded me of The Stand, The Library at Mount Char, and so much more.
Meaning
Looking back, I think it's clear that Helen can be taken to represent queerness and generally thinking and living non-traditionally in the early chapters. Justin is admittedly already confident in his gay identity, but meets Adrian at the same time as he gets the phone call which reminds him about Helen. Helen was kept in a cage by Justin's traditional mom, but was adopted by Regan, who is lesbian. Justin was estranged and almost fearful of Regan, but finds her welcoming. Diane running away with Helen against her mother's wishes, and later finding a bigender/trans identity, pretty queer!
We learn that different people hear different things from Helen's podcast, which feels like a strong reflection of how we all take different meanings from all kinds of media. Yet her words are never empty or meaningless; always prompting thought and self-discovery.
My read is that Unrath, who desires order and control for a perfect society, is trying to extinguish human free thought and queerness and everything by banishing Helen. He's described as quite old, so maybe he's been at it a while? But the book doesn't give much to go on in that direction.
Room for Improvement
And speaking of... I do feel like a lot of my enjoyment of this book is probably coming from these comparisons that I'm bringing to it. I'm honestly not even 100% sure that that's what Unrath's goal is—and if not, I'm not sure what the stakes are supposed to be.
Likewise, I accidentally primed myself to read Smoke Season as a fever dream by leaving it to the last minute and having a lot of caffeine and ADHD meds and not much else in my system while reading it. If I had read it over multiple days, the middle chunk in the commune probably would have ripped my momentum and enjoyment to shreds. It's long and happy and important, raising real ideas of eco justice and community living, but it's very different from the alien pace of the early sections with Regan.
Folks at the book club also had major complaints about Justin as a blank, self-insert character, which probably again would've bothered me more if I wasn't living that day through his eyes.
And then to circle back... I'm still just not sure how deep this book actually is! The epigraph and one song from within both mention the god Pan, who perhaps represents a mirror of or inspiration for Helen? Or could just be here for vibes.
While at Diane's mother's house Justin has a vision of a storm and shuts the window on it, which she thanks him for. Helen is later described as a storm and is certainly a force for ecological awareness; was this supposed to be a hint that Justin also has the power to keep Helen out of the world? Was she trying to reach him and Regan in that moment but he was too uncomfortable? Or perhaps the moment simply goes to show that Justin is still working on his comfort level with the change and clarity that Helen represents.
Listen to Helen
Despite those qualms, Smoke Season clearly had enough of a lasting impact on me for me to follow through and write a surprisingly long article about it four days later—very much beating out The River Has Roots, To the Moon and Back, and even Black Flame which I read a few weeks ago.
A final bit of praise: Smoke Season's title refers to air pollution from forest fires and industrialization, which characters reflect on as reducing the number of good days left in the world. And was I not saying the exact same thing earlier this summer? The title and thought behind it really resonated with me! I hope Unrath constantly smoking his strange chemical weed was supposed to be tied into this... but again it may have been a coincidence.
So, consider giving Smoke Season a shot! Or some of the other books I mentioned today, depending what kind of strangeness you're in the mood for. If I'm reading into this author correctly, I'll be excited to see what else they do next.
Thanks for reading and until next time <3
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