I liked what Kevin Landt did in The Mole People. I think to take the mental struggle of an individual and attempt to follow it through a narrative is ambitious and commendable. In my opinion, he has done this with a great degree of success.
Suzie is the central character and we are very much inside her head. She is schizophrenic and controls it with meds, is at college and has a loving relationship with Robbie. But she slides and her stability becomes more than shaky, resulting in her escaping the life that she knows and ending up in Las Vegas.
This is where she meets the Mole People and is brought into their “family” to live in the storm drains under the city. You feel throughout that Suzie is vulnerable and that, because she cannot see things clearly, she makes assumptions and a whole chain of bad decisions and in that, I feel bad for her. Her judgement impaired and the need to escape from the constant mental tugging which is going on inside of her means that she seeks drugs to mute and soften her distress.
Of course, this is in some ways counterproductive and we see Suzie’s steady decline through the course of the book.
The novel is very much a book of two halves: the first half shows Suzie gradually being lost in the darkness that is mental illness and insecurity. The second half deals with her acceptance into the Mole People and what that involves for her.
Landt’s narrative is tight and well-paced and he describes Suzie’s state of mind and her increasing paranoia well. The characters who she encounters have their back stories which shapes the idea of who they are as people and how they’ve come to be where they are: on the outskirts of society, living day to day to survive.
There’s nothing at all to dislike in this book. It’s a quick read with a subject which has darkness in it but deals with the subject of mental illness with a sensitivity and an insight so that it is more like looking at the devolution of a person and how this can happen by degrees and quickly if left unchecked. Likewise, it illustrates how with some assistance it is possible to see a way out.
Scuffed Granny 