A Brief Smothermoss Review

Smothermoss, p. 83

Smothermoss by Alisa Alering was released on July 16, 2024, published by Tin House Books. I picked it up at the Columbus Book Festival after listening to Alering speak about it on a panel. I would describe it as fantasy, though perhaps it fits more into the magical realism genre; I'm not very familiar with magical realism, so I couldn't tell you. The magic of Smothermoss mostly exists to describe the emotional states of the characters, or to drive them where they're needed in the plot.

Here's a brief synopsis: Two sisters, Sheila and Angie, live in an Appalachian town. They're poor and live with their mother Bonnie and their great aunt Thena. Life sorta sucks, and both girls represent this with various bits of magic: Sheila has a noose tied around her neck that no one else can see but is physically real, while Angie draws monsters on index cards which have their own personalities and have subtle powers which they use by signaling to Angie what to do. The murder of two young city-slickers happens in the mountains, which Angie tries to investigate.

The plot isn't very important here, and the mystery doesn't really take center stage until the end. Most of the novel consists of Sheila meandering around and dealing with that noose while also wrestling feelings she has for another girl, Juanita. While that's going on, Angie plays at fighting Russians while searching for the killer, though generally she just stumbles upon evidence. Don't go into this book looking for a mystery-plot, because you won't find it.

There are some things I really liked here. The prose itself is great, with plenty of gruesome descriptions throughout which adds a certain level of physicality to the novel. I also really enjoy whenever we shift perspectives mid-chapter. Usually Sheila or Angie hold frame, but occasionally the narrative expands towards Bonnie or Thena, fleshing them out more than they perhaps would have been otherwise. The ending is fairly satisfying at a character level, though I can't help but feel that Angie doesn't really get much out of it. Sheila is the certainly the star here, and who ultimately ends the novel. There are also some great descriptions of the mountain itself, with it slowly becoming a character as we get some POV shots. Smothermoss really captures the sheer age of Appalachia, which makes its connections to the characters of the novel felt throughout.

As for the bad, it mostly comes down to the plot itself not being very engaging. You really have to latch onto Sheila and her struggles with her queerness and an eating disorder which turns out to be the main representation of her struggles by the end of the novel. It also lacks emotion in some key scenes for me, particularly one character's death. There's also the invisible rabbit boy, who I don't feel serves any purpose here other than to help Sheila through her problems. Sam, their never-seen about brother who I believe is in Juvi, also comes up regularly and sort of kills my interest, since those parts feel a little meaningless to me.

All that being said, I think I'd still recommend Smothermoss. It never really wears out its welcome, and I can't say that I regret reading it.

Thanks for reading! I'm debating on starting up a new blog to separate my TTRPG stuff from anything else I write. If I do, I'll probably stick around here at Bearblog, but I do want to give some other platforms a try.