Natasha Calder’s debut opens with a slippery declaration: “As far as I’m concerned, it begins like this.” We’re immediately immersed in Kit’s consciousness – her strange, febrile voice sweeps the story along in mysterious pulses and beats. The unreliable narrator trope is in full force here.
Kit lives with Crevan in a castle on an abandoned island. It’s clear that they rely on one another for survival, and that they are sheltering from unrest in the wider world. The island is, fortunately, stocked with supplies, including food and clothes. There’s also a vast cedar cupboard; Kit must never open Crevan’s side, which contains a secret. Kit and Crevan have an intense, symbiotic relationship, which at times seems romantic, at others parental.
A woman washes ashore, unconscious, puncturing their private existence. Crevan wants to save the woman; Kit sees her as a threat. Without spoiling anything, the course of action Kit settles on is startling. This first section of the novel is gripping and persuasive – genuinely unsettling.
Slowly, the wider context becomes apparent. The world has been shaken by a human-made apocalypse. Bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics, leading to the evolution of “plastiphages” that consume artificial materials. “I saw it happen once, you know, and see it still sometimes in my dreams: a bright red T-shirt running to ruin, the fabric suppurating and dissolving; withering before my eyes like a petal in a flame.” Without plastic or antibiotics, the world has devolved into chaos. “Backbiters”, a form of post-apocalyptic doctor, roam the landscape. Both medicine and people have turned on themselves.
The function of the backbiters in Whether Violent or Natural is ambiguous – are they a force for good or ill? We learn that Crevan was once captured and fitted with a “patch”. “Imagine a square of something that’s thin and clear and so flexible that it could be folded up without breaking, even rolled up … laid down on the inside of your arm.” The patch contains “medicine to protect, to defend against the specific bacteria the backbiters are a-hunting”.
Thematically, Whether Violent or Natural draws on a wide range of references, from Shakespeare’s The Tempest to Iain Banks’s The Wasp Factory to Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven. But for me it is the intimate aspects of the book that work best. Kit’s complex psychology, her ambiguous love and sometimes seemingly sexual desire for Crevan are the most fascinating aspects. “He is nearly a head taller than me and has to crook his neck to speak directly into my ear, his lips barely only just brushing against the soft vellus hairs that fur the lobe. It’s delicious. With every whispered syllable comes shivering delight.”
Kit ran naked on the island until Crevan’s arrival. Only his embarrassment encourages her to put on clothes. Calder has created here a strange, toxic Eden – Crevan and Kit alternate between being parent and child to one another. As Kit says: “It’s my turn now. I have to be daddy, I have to be mummy. I have to take care of baby. I croon forward, press my lips to Crevan’s cheek, inhale the deep, sweat-musk odour of him.”
Kit’s narrative voice is an odd combination, both naive and erudite; she rarely uses one metaphor when three will do. At times this is evocative, at others less so. In general the clarity and propulsion of the first half of the book is diluted in the second, and the pacing is uneven at times. Then a final act twist reframes everything we have read, including Kit and Crevan’s relationship. The reveals are packed so tightly together that absorbing them is a challenge. Whether it all hangs together perfectly or not, I appreciated the scope and ambition of this unusual debut, and its undeniable strange power.
• Whether Violent or Natural by Natasha Calder is published by Bloomsbury (£16.99). To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
