Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

by Max Brooks Narrated by Judy Greer, Max Brooks, Jeff Daniels, Kai Ryssdal, Kate Mulgrew, Kimberly Guerrero, Various Narrators, Mira Furlan, Nathan Fillion, Terry Gross

Overview

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of World War Z is back with “the Bigfoot thriller you didn't know you needed in your life, and one of the greatest horror novels I've ever read” (Blake Crouch, author of Dark Matter and Recursion).

As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier's eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined . . . until now. The journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town's bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing-and too earth-shattering in its implications-to be forgotten. In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate's extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the legendary beasts behind it. Kate's is a tale of unexpected strength and resilience, of humanity's defiance in the face of a terrible predator's gaze, and, inevitably, of savagery and death.

Yet it is also far more than that.

Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us-and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity.

Part survival narrative, part bloody horror tale, part scientific journey into the boundaries between truth and fiction, this is a Bigfoot story as only Max Brooks could chronicle it-and like none you've ever read before.

Praise for Devolution

“Delightful . . . [A] tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.”-Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)

“The story is told in such a compelling manner that horror fans will want to believe and, perhaps, take the warning to heart.”-Booklist (starred review)

The Cast:
Judy Greer as Kate Holland
Nathan Fillion as Frank McCray
Kimberly Guerrero as Josephine Schell

With
Jeff Daniels as Steve Morgan
Mira Furlan as Mostar
Kate Mulgrew as Hannah Reinhardt-Roth
Steven Weber as Tony Durant
and
Terry Gross and Kai Ryssdal as themselves
and
Max Brooks as the researcher

Editorial Reviews

JULY 2020 - AudioFile

In this fictional yet eerily believable audiobook, Washington’s Mount Rainier erupts, causing several displaced and hungry Sasquatches to descend on a remote ecovillage called Greenloop. An excellent full cast—including the author, notable film and television stars, and well-known radio personalities—delivers the story, which consists of found documents, transcripts, book excerpts, and interviews. Each narrator does a credible job and contributes positively to the overall narrative. Among the ensemble, Judy Greer is the clear standout. She narrates much of the story, portraying Kate Holland, whose found journal accounts for most of the massacre’s documentation. Greer’s performance captures the gamut of Kate’s emotions, starting with her bubbly excitement upon first arriving in Greenloop and moving on to her unease, terror, and, eventually, steely resolve to survive at any cost. A.T.N. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

From the Publisher

There’s a bowstring undercurrent running through the whole of Max Brooks’s newest that’s liable to snap a reader in half. Characters so real you could name them from your own life, even as you call for them to run for cover. Max Brooks has written the next great epistolary novel. Devolution is phenomenal.”—Josh Malerman, New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box and Malorie 

“A masterful blend of laugh-out-loud social satire and stuff-your-fist-in-your-mouth horror. One elevates the other, making the book, and its message, all the more relevant.”—David Sedaris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Calypso

“Another triumph from Max Brooks!  First zombies. Now Bigfoot. I can’t wait until he turns every monster from childhood into an intelligent, entertaining page-turner.”—Stephen Chbosky, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Imaginary Friend and The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Devolution is spellbinding. It is a horror story about how anyone, especially those who think they are above it, can slowly devolve into primal, instinctual behavior. I was gripped from the first page to the last!"—Les Stroud, creator of Survivorman, filmmaker, and author

“I wish we could elevate the national dialogue on public safety to a level of tone and focus that Max Brooks has demonstrated for all of us.”—Tom Ridge, former governor of Pennsylvania and first secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

“Both a bloody good read and a bloody, good read. You’ll never look at a bamboo stake the same way again.”—Andrew Hunter Murray, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Last Day
 
“Unputdownable . . . will have you gripped to the last thrilling page.”—John Marrs, bestselling author of The One

­“It’s terrifying. Brooks is not only dealing with the end of humanity; he’s also showing us our further course toward a new, ineluctable, absolute brutality.”—BookPage (starred review)
 
“With stellar worldbuilding, a claustrophobic atmosphere, an inclusive and fascinating cast of characters, and plenty of bloody action, this inventive story will keep readers’ heart rates high.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“Brooks creates vivid landscapes and has a gift for shifting focus in an instant, turning lovely nature scenes suddenly menacing. Brooks packs his plot with action, information, and atmosphere, and captures both the foibles and the heroism of his characters.”—Publishers Weekly

JULY 2020 - AudioFile

In this fictional yet eerily believable audiobook, Washington’s Mount Rainier erupts, causing several displaced and hungry Sasquatches to descend on a remote ecovillage called Greenloop. An excellent full cast—including the author, notable film and television stars, and well-known radio personalities—delivers the story, which consists of found documents, transcripts, book excerpts, and interviews. Each narrator does a credible job and contributes positively to the overall narrative. Among the ensemble, Judy Greer is the clear standout. She narrates much of the story, portraying Kate Holland, whose found journal accounts for most of the massacre’s documentation. Greer’s performance captures the gamut of Kate’s emotions, starting with her bubbly excitement upon first arriving in Greenloop and moving on to her unease, terror, and, eventually, steely resolve to survive at any cost. A.T.N. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2020-02-10
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).

A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940178936559
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	06/16/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Introduction

Bigfoot Destroys Town. That was the title of an article I received not long after the Mount Rainier eruption. I thought it was spam, the inevitable result of so much online research. At the time I was just finishing up what seemed like my hundredth op-ed on Rainier, analyzing every facet of what should have been a predictable, and preventable, calamity. Like the rest of the country, I needed facts, not sensationalism. Staying grounded had been the focus of so many op-eds, because of all Rainier’s human failures—political, economic, logistical—it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people. And here it was again, right on my laptop screen: Bigfoot Destroys Town.

Just forget it, I told myself, the world’s not going to change overnight. Just breathe, delete, and move on.

And I almost did. Except for that one word.

“Bigfoot.”

The article, posted on an obscure, cryptozoological website, claimed that while the rest of the country was focused on Rainier’s wrath, a smaller but no less bloody disaster was occurring a few miles away in the isolated, high-end, high-tech eco-community of Greenloop. The article’s author, Frank McCray, described how the eruption not only cut Greenloop off from rescue, but also left it vulnerable to a troop of hungry, apelike creatures that were themselves fleeing the same catastrophe.

The details of the siege were recorded in the journal of Greenloop resident Kate Holland, the sister of Frank McCray.

“They never found her body,” McCray wrote to me in a follow-up email, “but if you can get her journal published, maybe someone will read it who might have seen her.”

When I asked why me, he responded, “Because I’ve been following your op-eds on Rainier. You don’t write anything you haven’t thoroughly researched first.” When I asked why he thought I’d have any interest in Bigfoot, he answered, “I read your Fangoria article.”

Clearly I wasn’t the only one who knew how to research a subject. Somehow, McCray had tracked down a decades-old list of my “Top Five Classic Bigfoot Movies” for the iconic horror magazine. In that piece, I’d talked about growing up “at the height of the Bigfoot frenzy,” challenging readers to watch these old movies “with the eyes of a six-year-old child, eyes that flick constantly from the terror on the screen to the dark, rustling trees outside the window.”

Reading that piece must have convinced McCray that some part of me wasn’t quite ready to leave my childhood obsession in the past. He must have also known that my adult skepticism would force me to thoroughly vet his story. Which I did. Before contacting McCray again, I discovered that there had been a highly publicized community known as Greenloop. There was an ample amount of press regarding its founding—and its founder, Tony Durant. Tony’s wife, Yvette, had also hosted several online yoga and meditation classes from the town’s Common House right up to the day of the eruption. But on that day, everything stopped.

That was not unusual for towns that lay in the path of Rainier’s boiling mudslides, but a quick check of the official FEMA map showed Greenloop had never been touched. And while devastated areas such as Orting and Puyallup had eventually reconnected their digital footprints, Greenloop remained a black hole. There were no press reports, no amateur recordings. Nothing. Even Google Earth, which has been so diligent in updating its satellite imagery of the area, still posts the original, pre-eruption photo of Greenloop and the surrounding area. As peculiar as all these red flags might be, what finally drove me back to McCray was the fact that the only mention of Greenloop after the disaster that I could find was in a local police report that said the official investigation was still “ongoing.”

“What do you know?” I asked him after several days of radio silence. That was when he sent me the link to an AirDrop link of a photo album taken by Senior Ranger Josephine Schell. Schell, who I would later interview for this project, had led the first search and rescue team into the charred wreckage of what had once been Greenloop. Amid the corpses and debris, she had discovered the journal of Kate Holland (née McCray) and had photographed each page before the original copy was removed.

At first, I still suspected a hoax. I’m old enough to remember the notorious “Hitler Diaries.” However, as I finished the last page, I couldn’t help but believe her story. I still do. Perhaps it’s the simplicity of her writing, the frustratingly credible ignorance of all things Sasquatch. Or perhaps it’s just my own irrational desire to exonerate the scared little boy I used to be. That’s why I’ve published Kate’s story, along with several news items and background interviews that I hope will provide some context for readers not familiar with Sasquatch lore. In the process of compiling that research, I struggled greatly with how much to include. There are literally dozens of scholars, hundreds of hunters, and thousands of recorded encounters. To wade through them all might have taken years, if not decades, and this story simply does not have that kind of time. That is why I have chosen to limit my interviews to the two people with direct, personal involvement in the case, and my literary references to Steve Morgan’s The Sasquatch Companion. Fellow Bigfoot enthusiasts will no doubt recognize Morgan’s Companion as the most comprehensive, up-to-date guidebook on the subject, combining historical accounts, recent eyewitness sightings, and scientific analysis from experts like Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Ian Redmond, Robert Morgan (no relation), and the late Dr. Grover Krantz.

Some readers may also question my decision to omit certain geographical details regarding the exact location of Greenloop. This was done to discourage tourists and looters from contaminating what is still an active crime scene. With the exception of these details, and the necessary spelling and grammatical corrections, the journal of Kate Holland remains intact. My only regret is not being able to interview Kate’s psychotherapist (who encouraged her to begin writing this diary) on the grounds of patient confidentiality. And yet this psychotherapist’s silence seems, at least to me, like an admission of hope. After all, why would a doctor worry about the confidentiality of her patient if she didn’t believe that patient was still alive?

At the time of this writing, Kate has been missing for thirteen months. If nothing changes, this book’s publication date may see her disappearance lasting several years.

At present, I have no physical evidence to validate the story you are about to read. Maybe I’ve been duped by Frank McCray, or maybe we’ve both been duped by Josephine Schell. I will let you, the reader, judge for yourself if the following pages seem reasonably plausible, and like me, if they reawaken a terror long buried under the bed of youth.

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