Denial by Jon Raymond

Published by Simon & Schuster on July 26, 2022

What an interesting and unpredictable story Denial tells. The novel takes place about 30 years in the future. A climate catastrophe brought people and nations together. They placed 33 corporate executives on trial for profiting from the planet’s destruction. Eight of the executives fled before trial, making new lives with new identities. They were tried in absentia.

Jack Henry, a reporter, tells the story from his first-person perspective. A friend tells Jack that he saw Robert Cave in a museum coffee shop in Guadalajara. Cave was one of the defendants convicted in absentia. Outing him would be a big scoop. Henry hopes to find him, confirm his identity, and then confront him on camera, a confrontation he calls “the Donaldson” after a technique perfected by Sam Donaldson.

Jack stakes out the coffee shop. He reads Huckleberry Finn to pass the time. After a few days, Cave enters the shop. Jake gets behind him in line, hoping to strike up a conversation so he can record the man’s voice. Cave notices Jake’s book and pulls out a copy of Tom Sawyer. They bond over books, the old-fashioned kind made out of paper. Cave seems eager for American company. Jack spins a cover story before he leaves. After another “coincidental” meeting in the coffee shop, the two men appear to be working toward a friendship.

Jack’s editor reviews the recordings and surreptitious videos. She confirms Cave’s true identity. To Jack and likely to the reader, Cave seems like a decent man. Unless he is putting on an act, he has accepted that climate change caused a crisis and that profit-seeking corporations were largely responsible for it. The novel suggests that people are capable of changing and encourages the reader to wonder about the fairness of taking freedom away from a man who is living a new and harmless life. A cameraman notes that other people who have faced the Donaldson also turned out to be friendly, likeable people. The same can be said of most criminals — we often like the ones we know and despise the ones we never meet. At the same time, Cave avoided the punishment that was imposed on the other executives, and it isn’t fair to let him escape responsibility for his actions.

This might be the stuff of a dramatic moment as Jack decides whether to ruin Cave’s life, but Jon Raymond eschews obvious drama to tell a smaller story. Denial does not explore climate change in any depth. Nor does it explore the wisdom of placing a few corporate executives on trial, although it recognizes that culpability extends far beyond those executives. Every person who chooses not to reduce a carbon footprint, every politician who votes against clean energy, every sham scientist and TV talking head who denies global warming shares fault for the destruction that climate change is already causing.

The story builds tension indirectly. Jack’s relationship with his girlfriend seems troubled when he brings her to Mexico to witness a solar eclipse. Jack becomes ill during that quick vacation, perhaps too ill to execute the Donaldson. The real drama comes from Cave when he realizes that his new life might be coming to an end. Raymond doesn’t overplay the scene. Cave’s reaction is surprising for its understatement. It seems all the more real and sad for its lack of drama.

Perhaps Denial could have been a bigger, more powerful book, but it isn’t fair to criticize an author for not writing a different book. Denial tells a simple, very personal story. I enjoyed it for what it is, even if it could have been more.

RECOMMENDED

Rain Dragon by Jon Raymond

Published by Bloomsbury on April 24, 2012

As I was reading Rain Dragon, I often wondered what the story was about.  It begins as an account of a couple trying to drift into a better life, then evolves into a description of a corporate counter-culture, then hints at a failed (or failing) relationship before turning into a disquisition on advertising and marketing strategies.  Large chunks of the novel read like a primer for progressive business management -- enlightening, but not really the stuff of a successful novel.  Finally, right at the end, Rain Dragon turns into a human drama, but by then it’s too late for the novel to establish an identity.

Damon and Amy decide to leave behind the trendy world of LA to “go north” in the hope of remaking their lives in the alt-trendy environs of Oregon.  They want to work at the Rain Dragon farm, an organic operation that makes yogurt, grows flowers, produces its own honey, and allows its people to indulge the belief that they are contributing to “an alternative society based on principles of sustainability and justice, counteracting all the self-destructive drives that humanity had blindly adopted since the industrial era and the onset of the consumer society.”  Rain Dragon’s CEO, Peter Hawk, also does some motivational training and consulting in business development and management.  To become paid employees at Rain Dragon, Damon and Amy will have to serve a volunteer apprenticeship for an undefined time, until they can prove their value to the organization.  Amy takes to the place naturally, fitting in well as an assistant beekeeper, but Damon can’t find a niche.  The role he finally adopts brings him closer to Hawk but seems to drive him away from Amy.

The story is told in the first person from Damon’s perspective.  Amy eventually falls into the background with the other secondary characters.  That didn’t bother me because Amy is incredibly annoying -- the kind of nightmare who manufactures turmoil because she isn’t comfortable with a serene relationship -- although in that sense she is a realistic character.  In fact, all the characters in Rain Dragon seemed real to me, although none were particularly appealing.  I don’t need to like the characters in order to enjoy a novel, but I do need to be interested in them.  Rain Dragon’s characters love to natter on about the nature of the world but their personalities are just too colorless to compel attention.

Jon Raymond’s writing is of such a high quality that I feel I should have liked Rain Dragon more than I did.  The discussion that Peter Hawk has with the CEO of a paper company about different business models -- Hawk wants employees to self-actualize, the CEO just wants them to work a little harder -- is fascinating, but it doesn’t create the kind of dramatic tension that makes a novel memorable.  When the drama finally arrives, the novel is nearly over, and so was my interest.  The big moment toward which the story builds is utterly predictable.  More troubling is that when it finally arrived, I just didn’t care.  Rain Dragon has its moments, but not enough moments to earn a strong recommendation.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS