Review of "Clear Cuts" by Joshua S. Narins

Score: 91+/100 (9.1+ out of 10)

Imagine a world where the people you are supposed to trust the most, the people closest to you are actually the ones actively trying to destroy you. It is a terrifying thought!

Set primarily in rural Maine during the 1990s, Clear Cuts by Joshua S. Narins is a dark, bitter family novel that concerns themes of power, resentment, inheritance, betrayal, childhood trauma, and moral choice

The book splits attention between three lives: Jack Dougherty, a slick, ruthless Wall Street success; Michael Dougherty, his younger brother, an idealistic college professor who teaches ethics and responsibility; and Jacqueline, Michael’s angry, trapped, hard-bitten wife, who has spent much of her life staring out at the woods wanting something more.

From there, the novel builds around the death of family patriarch George Dougherty and the ugly battle over the Eire Upland Game Lodge, the family property in northern Maine. Jack inherits the business and land, while Michael is humiliatingly left almost nothing except a few symbolic items and an “empty” wheelchair, which tells you almost everything you need to know about how poisonous this family history is.

From there, things keep rotting. Jack has a long history of domination, manipulation, and swagger. Jacqueline is drawn to him, or maybe drawn to the fantasy of escape he represents, and the affair between them becomes one of the book’s ugliest engines.

Michael, meanwhile, is not a fool, but he is painfully slow to act, and that gap between what he knows, what he suspects, and what he can bear becomes central to the novel. The property angle adds another nasty layer: Jack arranges the sale of the Eire to Pulp International in a way that appears designed to prevent the lodge from receiving historic protection that could have preserved it. So the family betrayal is not just emotional. It becomes material, legal, and environmental too.

This is a dense book while also sometimes being rather mundane at times. You might occasionally ask yourself: Why are these people just randomly talking about history and slice of life stuff? Why is Jacqueline constantly swearing, cussing, and cursing her head off (it can seem excessive after a while, like a defiance of the economy of language). Why are these two characters screwing each other in the least sexual way possible in middle of cleaning a restroom? How is that pleasurable or enjoyable for them? Things like that can tend to make these characters and the book's framing seem a bit alien and weird.

However, there's a reason for everything.

First of all, we're not dealing with average, normal people. We're dealing with predators, backstabbers, and characters gripped by decades of trauma and animosity (among other things).

Jacqueline is almost cartoonishly foul mouthed because of how embittered she is--how much she hates her life and Michael.

She and Jack have their disturbing sexual encounter and enjoy it (sorta) because they're two peas in a pod: two corrupt, bitter, frustrated, manipulative, and—dare we say—evil people. Even this intimate interaction seems mechanical and transactional because these two people have pretty much lost their conscience and souls.

There's a part of us that wishes their names weren't so close together because reading them side-by-side can get a bit confusing. It seems like you've pretty much got two Jacks, a male and a female one working together on the same conspiracy. That might sound weird, but that's how the human brain is wired.

Anyway, we brought up the seeming randomness of some scenes and dialogue. For example, Michael, a professor, gives seemingly random lectures on historical events like World War II or on things like the Art of War by Sun Tzu. However, these lectures aren't so random after all. There's an irony to them. While he's talking about knowing your enemy and knowing yourself, his enemies are actively plotting against him and he seems mostly unaware for much of the book. He also talks about the Pearl Harbor attack and Admiral Yamamoto giving his famous "awoken a sleeping giant" quote. Well, you could argue that Michael is the sleeping giant in this scenario. You could also argue that Pearl Harbor was the world's most infamous sneak attack, and Michael is becoming a victim of a sneak attack.

At the same time... this is the third book we've read in a month which talks about Pearl Harbor. It seems overdone. Like, is there any variety? Everyone immediately goes to Pearl Harbor in their books. Everyone wants to compare everything to Pearl Harbor.

Anyway, the book also explores how the destructive relationship dynamic was built up between Michael and Jack since childhood.

George Dougherty did not exactly raise these boys in a healthy or loving environment. He raised them in a brutal, hard-edged, dominance-based world where weakness was punished and cruelty could fester. That matters. A lot. Jack does not just wake up one day as a monster in a Rolex. Michael does not just wake up one day as a man who quietly absorbs abuse from all sides. These people were shaped. Distorted. Conditioned. There's a really disturbing kicking scene that demonstrates this well.

That is one of the strongest things about Clear Cuts. It understands that adult betrayal usually has roots. Old roots. Deep roots. Family roots.

And boy, does this family have roots rotting underground.

Check it out on Amazon!