By Heidi Simmons
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Bird Box
By Josh Malerman
Fiction
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What if just one look at something could kill you? Would you ever open your eyes? In Josh Malerman’s Bird Box (Ecco, 272 pages), seeing is believing, but also deadly.
The story begins with Malorie, a young woman, who, with her sister, is moving into her first apartment. The news on the television is reporting a strange global phenomenon: People are taking their own lives and the lives of others in horrible and often gruesome ways for no apparent reason. The occurrences seem to be exponential and spreading across the United States.
But Malorie doesn’t watch the news and she is more concerned about being pregnant from a one-night stand. Social media is ablaze with terrible stories of creatures, alien invasion scenarios and government conspiracies but nothing concrete.
Malorie’s sister believes the online chatter. She insists they cover the windows because all it takes is one look at whatever it is and it’s over. Better safe than sorry. But Malorie needs a pregnancy test kit. So the two, without looking, help each other drive to a pharmacy. Indeed, something is not right. When they return, Malorie tests positive and her sister commits suicide after one peek out the window.
The world Malorie knows quickly changes. But before the phones die and communication systems quit, Malorie hears about a house that’s taking in survivors. When she arrives, the group takes her in, but their supplies are low and survival is a challenge. And still, no one knows for sure what it is that is so deadly, but everyone has lost someone close.
The group forms a family and everyone does his and her part to keep the house safe and running smoothly. Malorie becomes close to Tom, the leader, who seeks ways to live as normally as possible without laying eyes on whatever it is. He wants to help her and her baby survive.
When the group votes to let in Gary, a stranger, the harmony in the house starts to break down. He acts like a gentleman, but Malorie does not trust him. Gary relates stories about the “creatures,” but is not sure anything is really out there. He believes that “man is the creature he fears” and only the weak are driven to madness. Perhaps he may even be immune to whatever it is.
As Malorie goes into labor, all hell breaks loose in the house. Someone has pulled down the blinds and looked outside. Now Malorie is on her own with her newborn and a roommate’s baby. She raises the children to live in the new world without depending on their eyesight and teaches the children to hone their hearing skills. When the kids are four years old, Malorie flees with them to a refugee camp down river. All three, blindfolded, make a terrifying escape twenty miles away without looking at anything.
Bird Box is a fun thriller. Author Malerman paints a frightening apocalyptic world. Since all the characters are blindfolded, even the reader doesn’t see the actual world. There seems to be carnage, but it might be all blue skies and sunshine. The characters all live indoors with the windows covered. They are blindfolded when they go outside. The heart novel is the characters’ dark perceptions of this new world. They never risk looking at the natural world and the reader never knows for sure what the terror is – but there is something lurking and it is deadly.
Malerman writes in short present tense sentences. The chapters are also short, so the read goes by quickly. He structures the story by moving between Malorie’s river escape with the kids and the events that unfolded while living in the house. Think, Andrew McCarthy’s The Road meets Stephen King’s The Myst.
As a protagonist, Malorie is a fresh and endearing character. She is vulnerable and innocent. She is not a brilliant girl, but she knows enough to save herself and the children. Malorie wins literary mother of the year!
There is a an age gap in this story. Right or wrong, Gary is old and old school. He thinks differently than the young people who live in the house. It is almost a generational clash of ideas and ideals.
But this is where the book is weakest. There is too little philosophical debate and a lack of conversations about the nature of the threat and the entity. What is it? How can it kill people by only making eye contact? Is it psychological? Mass hysteria? I wanted more of Gary’s arguments that what we humans really fear is ourselves. Further, Gary hints at the possibilities of human evolution and that this event is a way to weed out the weak and the mad.
Gary could have been a much stronger antagonist, providing more ambiguity, danger and intensity especially when it comes to the unknown and the nebulous creatures that altered their world. It would have been great if there was a metaphor in this story or an allegory of some kind. Even if I missed a deeper meaning, the Bird Box still raised the small hairs on the back of my neck.
Happy Halloween.
