Book Review: A Better World by Sarah Langan

 

A Better World by Sarah Langan    

368 pages, Hardcover
Published April, 2024 by Atria Books

 

 I don’t know what took me so long to discover the work of Sarah Langan, I was late to the party, but perhaps the perfect time to do so. Shifting from straight horror (a genre where she earned a couple of Bram Stoker awards) to social-themed Science Fiction is a move I can relate to. Langan thankfully for her, is having better success than me. Besides natural award-winning storytelling chops, it is evident that she works very hard on these novels. One of those writers who was just born to do this.

Good Neighbors was a novel I pretty much never stopped thinking about. With a Monsters are Due on Maple Street (Classic Twilight Zone episode) meets Cli-fi - Langan created a lane for herself to dominate. Science fiction studies professor Liza Yaszek called her book about women writing SF Galactic Suburbia, one reason for that label is pioneer writers like Judith Merril for example were writing stories about families and rich characters the men were writing about. Langan is dominating the SF suburbia right now.  I live in a city, and I am not doing the suburbs so I can’t comment on how accurate or inaccurate the commentary is but Sarah Langan is becoming SF’s critic of the burbs in general. 

A Better World has a little Stepford Wives feeling because it is centered on a “perfect” community set in a future already radically changed by climate change.  Linda is our POV character, and she is excited when her family is given a chance to move to Plymouth Valley a corporate town in late 21st-century America. The outside world is mostly a mystery and according to the subtle world-building that comes early in the novel. “It was the era of the Great Unwinding. The institutions, laws, and even the bridges and roads that people had come to depend on were falling apart. Everything got automated, but broken automated.” Langan gives us a nugget of the collapse, but little of the day-to-day life. On this early page, we get the same method of talking about The climate crisis. “The weather stopped making sense. Fires and storms raged. Blackouts rolled through the country like waves at a King's Stadium Dodger game. A lot of people stopped making sense, too. They were angry and mad and sad all the time, they were indignant all over overall they'd lost.”

 Langan gives us plenty of world-building once we get to the corporate town, and it only adds to the mystery that we get hints about how unpleasant the rest of the world is. This is done mostly in characters expressing how lucky they are to live in Plymouth Valley. 

“OK, it's bad period because you want a company job, and you want to live in a town like Plymouth Valley. Is that what I'm hearing?”

Josie looked at her with exasperation. “I don't want it! I have to. There's nothing outside. No place to go except a company.”

It effectively accomplishes the horror novel narrative trick of explaining why the characters would stay. Given that there is also a pagan wicker man-ish feel to the community in PV. It also reminded me of the Olvia Wilde-directed movie Don’t Worry Darling, but unlike that movie, A Better World works both before and after the reveal. This novel works better because it feels more naturally weird, and is so much better told.

Linda and her daughter Josie while happy to be there start to see through it quickly. but much of the story drive is built around how the family TRIES to fit in. There are hilarious moments like when Linda brings another family donuts and is lectured that she should’ve brought Sourdough. “When you visit, you're supposed to bring homemade sourdough. Something that takes effort. No one brings this sweet crap…”

That is probably the way all families approach the suburb, Hip the son in the family is fitting in, but Josie the daughter is struggling. Some of the most heartfelt moments are times when Linda’s heart aches for the struggles of her kids. Josie’s struggles on the soccer field really highlight this. 

A Better World will be marketed as a thriller, a satire, or social commentary. It is all those things and that is one of the reasons it is great. Sarah Langan as an author is not one to run from the genres that many outsiders consider a ghetto. This novel is horror, it is Science Fiction. Because it has the strength and respect of literary circles doesn’t mean it is not science fiction. It is science fiction. Great science fiction indeed.