I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin

Published by ‎ St. Martin's Press on September 24, 2024

I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom is both an indictment and a celebration of the internet. It’s also one of the funniest books I’ve read this year.

Abbott Coburn is an incel. Like other incels, he blames women for problems that extend beyond involuntary celibacy. Abbott has an anxiety disorder and depends on his medication to function. Even medicated, Abbott has no social skills.

Abbott lives with his father Hunter and earns money from a ride-share app by driving Hunter’s SUV. Abbott was bullied in high school and blames high school girls for the bullying because girls reward bullies with sex. Abbott has joined the hordes of young male vloggers who insist that they are victims of a conspiracy. The conspirators are either feminists or attractive women who won’t shag them, depending on the moment.

Abbott is such a dunce that he’s almost likeable. The dynamic between Abott and his father encourages the reader to feel Abbott is far from evil and not irretrievably lost to the internet’s dark side.

A woman named Ether asks Abbott for a ride across the country, from the West Coast to the East. When he explains that the app does not permit long-distance travel, she offers him a large payment of cash to work off the app, half in advance, provided he leaves behind his phone and laptop. The other hitch is that she’s transporting a large black box that might or might not display radiation decals. A mysterious employer paid Ether a large amount of cash to bring the box to his place outside of D.C.

Abbott sets aside his suspicion of women and accepts Ether’s terms because he needs cash to reboot his life. He soon realizes that Ether didn’t tell him that she’s being followed by a biker named Malort who wants to acquire the box for his own (presumably nefarious) purposes. Things get out of hand when Reddit users begin tracing Abbott and Ether on their trek, having convinced themselves that they are terrorists or heroes, no theory being too crazy to express as a certainty.

The story picks up additional characters as it bounces along, some of whom live almost entirely in the digital world. Zeke Ngata is in a wheelchair. He’s active on Reddit and a fan of Abbott’s vlog. Phil Green was a genius who lived off-grid in Canada. An anti-technology conspiracy theorist, Phil was convinced that software was rewiring human brains to turn us into zombies. Maybe he was right, but Phil is dead now, survived only by his blog. Phil had the black box when Ether first saw it, although he refused to reveal its contents.

A former FBI agent named Joan Key has a long list of problems (that’s why she’s a “former” fed). She sees the black box as an opportunity to rekindle her relationship with the FBI. Or, if she’s lucky, she’ll be near the box when it explodes, perhaps gaining postmortem recognition for her effort to avoid a catastrophe.

Key contributes to the narrative by expressing interesting opinions. She attributes school shootings and other random acts of mass violence to “aggrieved narcissism, a total inability to put personal affronts into perspective. Why shouldn’t others die for your petty humiliations, when you’re the Main Character of the Universe”? Key teams with Hunter to find Abbott before a wannabe internet hero kills him.

The characters come together in an action-adventure comedy that is driven by misunderstandings and (since people get their information from questionable internet sources) outright fabrications. The story is amusing — and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny — for multiple reasons, but my favorite is its depiction of Reddit as a haven for “mostly young males with a vast arsenal of shallow knowledge and free time.” Transcripts of Reddit conspiracy theories surrounding Abbott are hilarious. Was he taken hostage by a crazy woman? Was he abducted by aliens? Does the box in his father’s SUV contain the radioactive corpse of an alien? Is the box stuffed with the corpse of a woman who disappeared while visiting the state where Abbott lives? Is Abbott a terrorist who intends to set off a dirty bomb in Washington D.C.? Are people who post groundless conspiracy theories working for Russia or is that also a groundless conspiracy theory?

A reader might surmise that the title refers to the black box in Abbott’s SUV, but the “black box of doom” actually refers to the screens on our communication devices and the algorithms that assure our exposure to bad behavior, driving us to fear the badly behaving, who are inevitably depicted as people different from ourselves — different by race, gender, political affiliation, place of birth, or any other factor that allows us to distinguish ourselves as good people, unlike all the different kinds of people who are always causing trouble.

Abbott’s arguments with Ether about female manipulation of males are insightful in their realistic portrayal of opposing viewpoints, even if the viewpoints of both characters are easily mocked. I agree with Abbot’s view that it’s silly for women to put on a bikini and then complain that they feel objectified when they are noticed by visibly appreciative men. But it’s even sillier for Abbott to claim that he’d rather be raped than to be falsely accused of rape because rape victims get sympathy while society always condemns accused are men.

Ether wants to teach Abbott a lesson that all incels should internalize — “you can actually get over bad things that happen to you.” The story at least forces Abbott to grow up, to start making decisions for himself rather than blaming the world for his empty life.

What’s in the box? The answer, carefully set up by scenes that might quickly be forgotten in this fast-moving story, is delightful. Just know that the climax is wild and funny. Some scenes have the credibility of Road Runner cartoons, but comedy doesn’t need to be credible.

I would recommend the novel just for its goofiness and the Looney Tunes feel of its final act, but I am even more enthused about the characters’ semi-serious discussions of significant social issues: the potential impact of growing up with screen interactions rather than human touch; the incel movement that links young men with stunted social skills; and the ridiculous (and potentially dangerous) nature of the conspiracy theories that these socially challenged men devote their lives to spreading in the hope of improving their self-worth. Those are discussions that society should be having. For that reason, I'm Starting to Worry would be a good book for book clubs that actually discuss books rather than gossiping about book club members who didn't make it to the meeting.

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