Racism and Deadly Reparations in Stephen Kearse’s “Liquid Snakes” https://ift.tt/3MzWcrq
A string of sensational suicides plagues the South, utilizing an unknown substance that leaves behind only a dark void, and in the middle of it all is the pain and suffering of a family torn apart by environmental racism.
In Liquid Snakes, the second novel by Stephen Kearse, a thick, black, home-brewed liquid devours everything it touches, leaving no trace, and I found myself cheering for (some of) the nefarious crimes involving the mysterious substance. In this intricately woven tale centering the Black experience at the mercy of white supremacy and capitalism, Kearse challenges the meaning of criminality, posing the unspoken question of whether two wrongs make a right. If generations are harmed without recourse, is fighting back really revenge?
The story focuses on Kenny Bomar, a chemist turned coffee shop owner carrying the weight of painful loss: a divorce from the love of his life, Maddy Tusk, following the stillbirth of the daughter they’d dreamed of, Saskia. Toxins from a local industrial plant evaded regulations bled into Maddy’s childhood home, causing a difficult pregnancy that would end in heartbreak years later. Despite a sizable settlement from the owners of the plant, Kenny, understandably, can’t let go.
Kenny and his college friend, Thurgood Houser, a fellow chemist who turned his guest house into a lab, create a DIY replica of ADHD medication Adderall, free of the side-effects. Thurgood sees a financial opportunity, while Kenny sees personal gain. Kenny uses the by-product of his DIY concoction as the main ingredient for the black liquid he calls RST, which is connected to the deaths of a promising high school senior, a college baseball pitcher, and others across the South – individuals inspired to take their own lives in headline-grabbing ways; individuals found and groomed through EightBall, an app which Kenny built.
Eight different characters get a point of view in the novel, some disappearing entirely until they are tied together by an unsettling ending. In addition to Kenny, Thurgood, and Maddy’s points of view, there are two epidemiologists at the CDC investigating the origination of the unknown substance; the Fulton County district attorney vying for mayor of Atlanta, tasked with investigating the criminality of the first episode; his adopted teenage daughter, mesmerized by the footage of the pitcher’s death; and the first noted death, the promising high school senior.
Although loose threads tie these characters together, they are bound by one commonality: the way Black life is marginalized and oppressed by the claws of white supremacy and capitalism in an attempt at extinction. It’s seen in the three traffic stops Kenny experienced on his way to see Thurgood and, later in the novel, Maddy’s traffic stop when she’s told, “All lives matter,” by the officer. It’s seen in the meticulous way Kenny must live his life to endure in the South: “The code for being black and unbothered was rigorous and arcane but not unbeatable.” It’s seen in the lives torn apart by the environmental racism, toxicity leaching into homes like Maddy’s, causing “…lots of death. Black death.”
Kenny envisions RST as a mechanism of Black liberation, saying, “I realized that this country doesn’t deserve us, black people. For centuries it’s tried to erase us. I say we settle up, reset this motherfucker.” Thurgood initially agrees, but all he really sees is dollar signs, and the two come to blows after Thurgood realizes their plans differ. Kenny, expecting the fight, emerges unscathed, by poisoning Thurgood. Kenny manages to place all the blame for RST on his friend, leaving him free to turn the substance into the weapon he envisions – but only after setting the record straight on his friend’s accusations.
“Reparations was not murder, Kenny told his dying friend. And Kenny was crazed, not crazy. Aggrieved, not grieving. There was a compelling argument that he was fucking stupid, but what he felt was fucking determined. ‘Important distinctions,’ Kenny said.”
It takes a sharp eye to stay on top of this read, which weaves a complex plot structure offering just enough inference to keep the brain engaged. It is heavy with suicidal ideation, and perhaps overwritten in some spots, with entire paragraphs so thick with metaphor and imagery that the meaning becomes clouded. My only real complaint is that several action sequences came out of nowhere, including the fight between Kenny and Thurgood. It’s possible I just needed more coddling and hand-holding than most readers, but the lack of emotion and internal discourse during these scenes made it difficult to feel the events were actually happening. The prose, however, was beautiful, full of lines that evoked deep emotion and understanding of the character’s experience.
Kearse takes the very serious topic of racism, snarling its tendrils around everything, then infuses cultural observations and wit, and somehow keeps it from becoming watered down. One CDC epidemiologist notes the way the so-called “Blackouts” became prominent in the news: “The body count was lower than that of the four mass shootings that also occurred that Saturday, but those killings didn’t have a photogenic and articulate mayoral candidate to Robespierre them into addressing the real threat to public safety.” When the microbiologist who analyzed the liquid for the CDC shares his findings, he says: “…I had to hit the DNA sequencer because this isn’t the kind of pathogen that just falls out of the sky. If it does, God is real and when he made the world, the motherfucker was wearing gloves.”
In Liquid Snakes, Octavia Butler and Toni Morrison meet Stephen King for a jarring story of agency and autonomy in a world hell-bent on snuffing out both. It’s a complex narrative of individuals searching for their own answers amid the framework of a larger community seeking a path forward in the midst of pain, a journey that opens the door to questioning morality which asks what constitutes revenge when injustice persists. It’s certainly a read that will lurk in the corners of your mind long after the book closes.
FICTION Liquid Snakes
By Stephen Kearse
Soft Skull
Published August 8, 2023
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