Given the size of the thing it indicts — not only America, but the entirety of modern society — it’s a somewhat spectacular achievement that Gabriel Bump’s second novel, The New Naturals, feels as fun as it does ... sharp, witty even in some of its darkest moments ... This sort of thing could get real dour real quick. Fortunately, Bump has a sense of humor, and makes good use of it. There are slivers of Denis Johnson here, especially in the dialogue, which often recalls the hospital scene from Jesus’ Son: people speaking through and around one another, the result uproarious, addictive and just removed from how most human beings actually talk. It’s delightful ... There are a couple of frustrating aspects to The New Naturals. The first is stylistic ... The other issue is pacing — or rather, the relationship between pacing and depth. Virtually every character in this novel is incredibly compelling. Rio and Gibraltar feel especially alive, in large part because of how well Bump renders the small contours of their love, even as their utopian dream spirals out of control. But the focus shifts from one set of characters to the next too haphazardly, and not all the narrative threads are reconciled as convincingly as one might hope ... Regardless, The New Naturals homes in on perhaps the most daunting anxiety of modern life: the sense that some load-bearing beam is about to cave, and there’s only a foggy, terrifying guess as to what comes next.

Doesn’t give too much away. The novel focuses more on the community’s founders, and the people who aspire to go there, than the ambitious society itself ... Bump lets the reader fill in the gaps, which proves to be a smart decision — his focus is on the gaps left in people’s lives more than the quixotic ways they try to fill it, and that’s what makes the novel so strong.

The New Naturals is two-thirds of a great novel. Gabriel Bump's satire boasts lively prose that feels like it races to make its points ... Natural, conversational dialogue drives the book to such an extent that for pages at a time, it's almost like a play ... The trouble is the utopia — which, not surprisingly, becomes a dystopia. After a couple hundred pages of preparing us for the dreamed-of society, The New Naturals skips over how it works, proceeding almost directly from utopian dreams to collapse, which comes about because a deus-ex-machina benefactor grows bored with the project ... The last section of the book disappoints because it starts to seem like The New Naturals is a bait-and-switch.

The seams where those threads are pulled together are both obvious and strained; the book really feels like six characters desperately searching not for salvation, but for a good reason to all be in the same story together ... It’s when they’re furthest apart that the characters have the room to breathe and really shine, showing off Bump’s skills with characterization and dialogue. I would’ve gladly spent more time with Bounce and his family — this section really sings; his malaise is palpable, compelling, and richly rendered ... Bump aims to show the extreme lengths people will go to in order to give their lives meaning in the face of relentless, seemingly inescapable adversity. What he reveals is that, even in fiction, meaning isn’t always easy to find.

Much of Bump’s novel reads as commentary on the hopelessness of contemporary life, as characters react to cascading global crises and the stark, persistent divides among social classes ... Bump spins a Möbius strip of a tale through the perspectives of unrelated characters whose stories eventually converge. He nods to real events and historical figures through the names he gives these characters, which are at once referential and quietly profound.

From the first pages, the novel is fast-paced, and conversations feel occasionally manic, with characters talking over one another in frenetic streams of consciousness. But it's the urgency of the prose that propels the narrative forward, keeping you engaged and invested. Bump’s characters’ motivations maybe be different, but their relatable desire for community, belonging and a better world unite them—even if the pursuit of utopia ultimately proves elusive.

A surprisingly tender story about grief and hope packaged within a rollicking series of darkly funny, quixotic journeys ... Bump's prose--crisp, clipped, and urgent--whisks readers down his rabbit hole from the start, leading them through spirals that feel as stylistically assured as they are narratively unpredictable. While the plot carries his characters down unexpected paths, Bump's attention to the details of their personalities never wavers.

Wry and astonishing ... Brisk dialogue and flashes of mordant humor pay off, and Bump cannily grapples with such issues as gentrification, microaggressions, and environmental racism. This is a scalding study in human nature.

Bump doesn’t speak over his characters, letting their own struggles and ambiguous destinies speak to the depth of the challenge. An affecting, experimental tale of race and reinvention.