Kit Whitfield: Benighted (Bareback)

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Benighted (Bareback in the UK) is a striking and well-written novel set in a grim alternate reality. Whitfield depicts rampant social injustice and a culture of chronic violence. The emoting is on the heavy-handed side, but the main character and the world are engrossing.

Benighted is a modern-day story, but grounded in an alternate history dating back to the Middle Ages. Lycanthropy is the norm, and every full moon the population turns wolf. Society copes with its animal side repressively, imposing full-moon curfews and lock-ups.

Far worse off are the tiny minority who are born disabled, unable to change. These non-lunes or “barebacks” are despised and disadvantaged from birth; as adults, they’re pressed into dangerous work “dogcatching” for the government, sent out at full moon to round up and pen loose wolves.

The story is told by Lola May Galley, a dogcatcher and legal representative for lune offenders. When her colleagues are attacked by both wolves and humans, Lola fears she’s next.

Benighted society

Whitfield presents a very effective dystopia, with a lot to say about power and privilege, and clear analogies to modern social injustice. Non-lunes are only one percent of the population, but they’re crucial to maintain lune society’s compartmentalization of their wolf natures—a Faustian bargain dating back to the Inquisition years:

Luning, already regarded by the Church with the suspicion that sex, childbirth, and all the other carnal upheavals the human frame fell prey to, became a matter of panic. The Inquisition came down hard; they went on the hunt. The Dominicans, the founders of it all, took up their nickname like a banner: Domini Canes, the Hounds of God, appointed to run down Satan’s wolves. Protestants, who by then were killing Catholics with equal fervor, declared luning to be an unregenerate state, because you were incapable of faith while under its influence. Pious citizens who feared temptation to sin, or frightened citizens who didn’t want to find themselves at the stake, take your pick, but people began locking themselves away. […]

We were useful, back then. People needed us.

That’s Lola: intelligent, bitter, and well aware of the ugly sides of the law she serves.

Despite the themes of prejudice and alienation, this is not an epic struggle of good versus evil. It’s Lola’s book, and she lives in a moral grey area—as do her lune clients. Lunes rarely remember their wolf experiences, and civil trials permit what amounts to a sleepwalking defense: I did it while I was a wolf; I don't remember it; I wouldn't have done it otherwise. The lunes’ inability to police themselves makes it hard to imagine a "save the world" happy ending; the world of Benighted remains screwed up, and the focus stays on Lola’s struggle to stay alive and sane.

Not likable, but sympathetic and reliable

Lola is frankly a bit of a pill. She has to be tough to survive her job, but she’s also inconsistent, self-centered, and prejudiced. She’s a thorough pessimist, and a nervous wreck—certainly not the tiresome "plucky heroine triumphs over adversity" female character type, but is she too hard to like? Not in my judgment. Lola’s not precisely an unplucky sad sack, and she’s no villain, but she’s a character on the cusp. Will fear harden her attitude into outright persecution of lunes, or will she continue trying to walk the line, defending lunes in court and treating them as humans--except at full moon?

I find Lola more sympathetic than likable—or perhaps likable by Anne Lamott’s liberal definition: "someone whose take on things fascinates you", who’s flawed in understandable ways, or who has the survivor’s "certain clarity of vision". Lola’s rough edges are understandable, and I appreciate seeing a complex female character facing significant moral dilemmas.

The over-bright side

The writing and the messages in the book are not subtle. Lola has been abused in every imaginable way—the litany is overwhelming. Her downward spiral is relentlessly dark, while the happy-sunshiny scenes with her infant nephew and her lover, Paul, can be maudlin.

Paul especially is too good to be true. His entry into Lola’s life is overly serendipitous and he’s infinitely patient with Lola’s freak-outs. He does, however, make a significant contribution to the story: Paul’s hippie-dippy quest for self-knowledge provides a faint hope that lune society could change.

Benighted is not the typical werewolf novel that’s flooded the market recently. I imagine it could be shelved under literary fiction, science fiction, or horror. Like my favorite speculative fiction, Benighted alters today’s world just enough to create pointed social commentary, and it’s refreshing to see writing that makes me empathize with a challenging character. The dénouement is rather a let-down, much like a mystery in which on the last page the sleuth deduces the presence of some unseen hand directing the action. However, the provocative climax is what’s stayed with me.

Grade: B for Lola's melodramas, the "unseen hand" ending, and some clunkiness in describing her relationships. An A for an interesting voice, a fascinating world, and a provocative, memorable story. Overall, A-/B+.

Tags: books, reviews, horror, fantasy, alternate history, speculative fiction, werewolves