Max Gladstone: "Last Exit"

Title: Last Exit [on Amazon | on Amazon UK | on Goodreads] (Note: I got my copy from the UK-based publisher Titan Books, so I'm using the UK cover and I'm linking to Amazon UK along with Amazon.com; but I decided to use the US blurb because it follows the story more accurately. The US version was published by Tor Books in March; the UK version came out this month)
Series: None
Author: Max Gladstone [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Multiverse, Urban Fantasy (more precisely, Portal Fantasy)
Year: 2022
Age: 16+
Stars: 5/5
Pros: Engrossing, visionary yet painfully rooted in reality, with excellent characterisation and writing to boot.
Cons: There's a lot to absorb for a single story, both plot- and writing-wise: it takes a patient and disciplined reader not to get lost.
WARNING! Blood and gore. Bug horror. Suicidal thoughts.
Will appeal to: Those who want to get lost in a brutal, yet poetical work of fiction.

Blurb: Ten years ago, Zelda led a band of merry adventurers whose knacks let them travel to alternate realities and battle the black rot that threatened to unmake each world. Zelda was the warrior; Ish could locate people anywhere; Ramon always knew what path to take; Sarah could turn catastrophe aside. Keeping them all connected: Sal, Zelda’s lover and the group's heart. Until their final, failed mission, when Sal was lost. When they all fell apart. Ten years on, Ish, Ramon, and Sarah are happy and successful. Zelda is alone, always traveling, destroying rot throughout the US. When it boils through the crack in the Liberty Bell, the rot gives Zelda proof that Sal is alive, trapped somewhere in the alts. Zelda’s getting the band back together - plus Sal’s young cousin June, who has a knack none of them have ever seen before. As relationships rekindle, the friends begin to believe they can find Sal and heal all the worlds. It’s not going to be easy, but they’ve faced worse before. But things have changed, out there in the alts. And in everyone's hearts. (Amazon)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Titan Books for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

ABOVE AND BEYOND

When I first stumbled upon Last Exit, I thought it had all the marks of a book that I would love, but ultimately, it exceeded my expectations. I'm a sucker for alternate realities and a ragtag, apparently doomed band of adventurers trying to save the world against all odds. I did get the crazy worlds and their in-between, the dysfunctional found family, the road trip rife with danger and mystery (ha! the characters do have an exchange about the usage of the word "rife", and apparently, it stuck with me). But nothing, not even the excerpt I read before turning in my request, prepared me for the characters' being so much more than the literal driving force (because you know, road trip) of the story, the made-up worlds' allowing for a sharp social commentary, and the writing's being nothing short of evocative (poetical at times), despite the horrors our heroes endure. [...]

POWER PACK

Gladstone has a flair for writing strong, distinctive characters (I practically never had a problem with the change of perspective), and I'm also pleased to report that there's a lot of (sometimes intersectional) diversity weaved into the group. Zelda and Sal (short for Sally) used to be in a relationship, and Sally is Black (so is her cousin June); Ramòn is Latino and gay; Sarah is Native American. It's worth noting that every character (June included), since starting to travel the multiverse, developed a "knack" related to their personalities and/or needs. (Not that such a thing makes superheroes out of them - but more of that in a minute).

The story moves on three different, alternating plans: the original group of five (Zelda, Sal, Ramòn, Sarah and Ish) meeting in college, forging a bond and discovering a way - part science, part magic - to step into alternate worlds; the terrible incident that resulted in Sal's being lost to the rot that is swallowing the multiverse; the present quest, where the group, reunited after a ten-year estrangement, is forced to face Sal - and the rot - again, and maybe, ultimately, destroy both.

Last Exit beautifully (and painfully) captures the feeling of being young and brilliant, yet lost and afraid, at the start of your college years - especially if, like Zelda, you're a lesbian in the closet (more like, someone who's still waiting for her queer awakening to happen) from an evangelical family, or if, like Ramòn, you're a gay man from the wrong side of the tracks. It also does a great job of letting us into the characters' heads in the present, tackling love, grief, guilt, anger, loyalty, motherhood, and weaving them into a complex, so very human tapestry, even in the face of preternatural danger and events and powers - or even more so because of those. For all their abilities, our protagonists are damaged in more than one way, and imperfect, and weary, and often vulnerable. Oh, and speaking of protagonists, how can I forget Ramòn's Challenger - I haven't met a car that was such a character of its own since Baby and Dean Winchester exited the scene...

THE AMERICAN NIGHTMARE

When I started reading Last Exit, I was expecting an epic multiverse romp through wondrous yet terrible worlds, and in a sense, I did get it. What I didn't expect was for the characters, and the worlds themselves, to also bleed from the kind of wounds that hit so close to home. Gladstone tackles privilege, oppression, and our inability to shape a better world either because we don't want to or because we aren't even trying anymore. And for "world" I mainly mean "America" in this case, since the author builds his story not only around "elements of the American myths - the muscle car, the open road, the white-hatted cowboy" (as the unabridged US blurb states), but also around the country's short-sightedness, prejudice, greed, and will to crush everything and everyone that doesn't align with certain standards. There's so much of the "real world" woven into a tale about alternate, often logic-defying universes, so much that I didn't expect a story like this to have - but also love, beauty and, ultimately, faith in the human race. In conclusion: Last Exit is a visceral book, thick - or is it "rife"? 😉 - with everything under the sun, and a demanding one (also because it's several hundred pages long), but don't let that discourage you if it sounds even remotely like your jam. You will probably love it far more than you'd expect...exactly like I did.

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US cover