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. But 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.
Whatever we might think of the legends, it’s impossible not to be fascinated by the stories. I really didn’t quite know where this book would go, but it was a story I was curious to read once I’d heard about it.
The premise is quite straightforward…the author has found journals belonging to Kate Holland, a young woman who moved into Greenloop (a remote hi-tech village) that tells us about the aftermath of a volcanic eruption and the residents’ attempts to survive. She is missing, so nobody knows exactly what happened, but her journals tell us that the group were found by Bigfoot.
Whatever your view of this legend, the idea of an undiscovered animal race is fascinating. Much of our fascination with such a creature comes with our need to work out our place in society and to consider how we could interact with such a group.
What I learnt from this is to be careful what you wish for, and to think carefully about the skills you have before you go and live somewhere so remote. You never know what you’re capable of until you are forced into the position of need.
As we watch Kate, her partner Dan and the other residents come to the realisation that they’re no longer top of the food chain there’s a distinctly menacing feel to this. Gruesome at times, it explores just how far we are prepared to go to survive.
Of course it would have been nice to have a rounded-off story but I liked the way this was done. Scary – absolutely – but very very interesting.