A couple years ago, Cole gifted me Adam Roberts’ The Thing Itself. I enjoyed the book greatly, and it lives in a special place within my heart, but I also felt inadequate to the task of reviewing it. It is a dense 350 page book that mixes philosophy with cyberpunk movie action, asking: what is alien? But I’m not here to talk about The Thing Itself, not yet anyway. The book I actually am here to discuss is Roberts’ 2021 release Purgatory Mount, which is a heartrending dive into the things we do to each other as individuals, and as a society and what atonement might look like. You don’t have to take my word for it, it’s in Robert’s acknowledgments. But does it succeed?
Millenia into the future, a ship piloted by the gods is approaching a planet with a mountain that ascends to the heavens. The mountain is not natural, and the gods want a chance to explore it, understand it, and stamp their name on history. But there is also another story, one taking place in the 2030s. America is on the brink of civil war as cities and states have already begun taking sides in the splinter. Soldiers from a previous war walk around with their brains augmented by their cell phones due to weaponized neonicotinoid-induced amnesia. In the middle of it all, the U.S. government is trying to steal something from a small gang of teenagers, something they think will help them recover after the war has been won. Can Ottoline and her friend survive the scrutiny and chase? And what is it that they are hiding that the government and its many opponents want from them?
Purgatory Mount is a challenging novel, and while it endears me to it, it does mean you will have to work to grok Roberts’ task. There are two stories within the novel, The bookends following the crew of the spaceship, and the middle chunk titled “The United States of Amnesia.” The middle section follows Ottoline and her friends as their lives are upended by a borderless civil war within the United States. It’s a harrowing experience that contains prose that is up to the task of capturing the fear and uncertainty. Roberts does not shy away from the brutal realities of the state, its institutions, and its actors, but he also portrays the horror of the war through the eyes of children. Adults are going about their everyday lives as towns are bombed and transportation lines are disrupted. Rarely are the kids in the conversation as chatter and rumors settle like fog on the war. It makes the whole experience unsettling and unknowable. Being in a war alone must be hell, but being a child when adults are constantly trying to justify that it will all work itself out in the end while the world spirals into oblivion seems an even worse fate. This is compounded when the adults are sure you’re the one with the solution to it all, and they will stop at nothing to get it from you. I personally love the in your face commentary highlighting the sons shall pay for the sins of the father, while that payment is requested by the sinning fathers. It’s
The Amnesia storyline is oppressive in its portrayal both in style and substance as children wander an America under constant air raids. However, Roberts brings a bit of levity to the crushing dread. Ottoline is a sure-headed teenager who despises swearing. So even when she is in the midst of an interrogation in a black site, her personality shines through. Each section has little reminders like this that even though it may be bleak, these individuals still have their own will to place on the world. Granted it’s not much, but it breaks up the endless march of war and death in unexpected ways.
A warning to those excited about the space story, it’s short, sweet and to the point. It could have been its own whole ass book, digging into the various ways that kind of voyage would have sucked for people. But Roberts’ has a goal, and he hones this quarter of the book to its sharpest edge. He plays with concepts surrounding time dilation and time perception that create whole religions. Augmented humans seen as gods by others, prepare to explore an alien artifact as people who are both slaves and food struggle to comprehend why the gods have become active after centuries of minimal change. There is not a lot of time to accomplish what most readers might seek. Roberts’ writing seems to indicate that he knows this, and pushes fast and hard towards his conclusion in the final chapter. Weirdly, it works. The density of the story takes hold and his preferred goal starts to take the stage. And when it ends, it feels heavier than you can imagine, but your shoulders feel a little freer.
In Roberts’ own words, he is digging into the concept of atonement. It is a concept that feels foreign to me, especially in books that I read. People often get away with their crimes, or continue to perpetuate their own evil, bolstered by the systems in place. Where Purgatory Mount succeeds for me is not that it tries to engage with what atonement looks like, but instead shows these systems that harm people, harm children, and states frankly “pay for your sins,” and by god, sin is all over the pages of this book. It extends beyond the book, into the past that leads to this book. It extends to the founding of the United States, and its continual forgetting of its own history. It crawls through the pits and climbs the mountains of Dante and Christian mythology. Normally, a little nuance is my flavor, but here the bluntness of it all washes that need away. Had I written about this book immediately after finishing it, I may have found myself a little less praiseworthy, but in the weeks I’ve had to chew on it, I could not stop thinking about it and its implications. Much like The Thing Itself, it has become a permanent brainworm that has changed my perspective on books, and the world itself.
Purgatory Mount is a chilling read. It’s bleak, tough, and mean, but not gratuitously so. It feels like the right balance to highlight Roberts’ stated themes. It’s not gory, and the experienced scale of the issue is not despair-inducing. But the oppressive weight of it all hangs like a sword of Damocles, just out of sight, but always there, dangling. If you’re afraid you’ll need a degree in philosophy to understand what’s going on, do not worry. Roberts explains what he means upfront, and spreads his easter eggs as small thematic pieces that tie it all together. This book reminds me that I need to read more of his work and that there is still space for weird genre mashups that don’t shy away from big-picture themes. If you’re looking for a lot of bang in a smaller page count, please pick up this book.
Rating: Purgatory Mount – Grab your climbing gear and spiritual baggage, it’s time to ascend.
-Alex
