In an age of futility, where “abnormality is the new normal,” where everything feels depressing, and where rationality is not a given, the interconnected stories and characters of Atavists feel like a portrait of now. These stories are like moral litmus tests, digging into the compulsions of everyday people during this five-years-post-covid time, where regression is high and the worst base instincts of humanity are on display (jealousy, greed, fear, rage, etc.), all set among the absurd bleak backdrop of living at the end of the world among divided neighbors and messy morals. Yeah, it’s bleak, but it’s also compulsively readable thanks to Lydia Millet’s talent of getting at the granularity and nuance of what is going through people’s minds, what still makes us human, even and especially as tension is pulled to snapping points.
Atavists by Lydia Millet, (List Price: $27.99, W. W. Norton & Company, 9781324074410, April 2025)
Reviewed by Julie Jarema, Hub City Bookshop in Spartanburg, South Carolina