When These Mountains Burn by David Joy

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on August 18, 2020

When These Mountains Burn is a literary suspense novel that carefully balances plot and characterization. The novel offers a granular examination of Appalachian lives plagued by addiction and loss. The story focuses on a few key characters who are caught in a clash between cultural values that have long informed the region and the drug culture that swallows residents who see vanishing opportunities and have little hope for a better life.

There were good times in Ray Mathis’ life, but it hurts too much to remember them. His wife is dead and his adult son Ricky is a junkie. Ray retired from the Forest Service with an injury and a small settlement. He spends his last $10,000 to save his son from a drug dealer who is holding him hostage for an unpaid debt.

Ray is from a generation that “never had much use for the law.” People in the mountains took care of their own problems. In Ray’s opinion, if someone who deserved rough justice came up missing or got burned out of a house, it would be a mistake to call that lawlessness. “These mountains used to have their own kind of order,” Ray laments. He will eventually take justice into his own hands — a decision that irritates but doesn’t surprise the deputy sheriff who is like a daughter to him — but Ray won’t be pleased with the result of his actions.

Ray is a decent man who endures the changes that have vanquished the kind of self-sufficient life that men of his generation value. Ray feels emotions strongly but lacks the ability to express them. He knows that the strong silent man is actually a weak man, weakened by his inability to speak the truth in his heart.

A second character who gets a fair amount of attention is Rodriquez, an undercover agent who works with the DEA. Taking advantage of the assumption that “men who looked like Rodriguez were drug dealers and rapists,” the DEA uses Rodriguez to gather information about a high-level dealer who uses the Cherokee reservation as a refuge from surveillance.

The third key character, and in some respects the most important of the trio, is Denny Rattler. Denny is a heroin addict and small-time thief who steals enough to pay for his next fix. Denny finds himself in a motel room with a group of addicts, tries to save a man’s life, and is beaten for his trouble. Throughout the story, Denny has serious intentions of cleaning himself up. As is generally true of addicts, he always manages to find a reason to set his good intentions aside in favor of the needle. Even his love for his sister is less compelling than the need to chase the perfect high.

David Joy tells his story in an honest and straightforward prose style that suits the novel's atmosphere. His plot builds suspense as gritty characters circle each other in a dance that brings them closer to destruction. The story gains credibility from its relative simplicity. It is violent without becoming brutal or gratuitous. The ending is satisfying but not artificially happy.  Whether any character will internalize the novel’s traumatic events and emerge as a better person is unclear, although Joy doesn’t foreclose that possibility. Life is hard and the future is uncertain, but perseverance — the novel seems to suggest — carries the possibility of reward, even if it is not the reward we seek or expect.

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