...[a] lethally witty debut ... One might expect a novel about gun-toting, conspiracy-minded loners to lampoon its key players, but the book succeeds because Cauley appears as curious and empathetic toward the survivalists as she is toward her protagonist ... Cauley’s prose comes at an accelerated clip that will at times have readers jumping back a few paragraphs to orient themselves. But devoid of pretense or judgment, her writing style reflects Aretha’s ambivalence, and the narrative’s underlying philosophical inquiries ... Cauley, a former writer for The Daily Show With Trevor Noah, displays an enviably versatile sense of humor...The novel is most fun when her wit bolsters the narrative’s sociopolitical underpinnings.
In today’s America, what constitutes success? What are the obstacles to achieving it? How do race, class, age, and location affect the odds? These oh-so-serious questions are tackled with scathing, lol-inducing wit in The Survivalists, Kashana Cauley’s smart, sharp debut novel ... Like the novel itself, its smart, satiric opening line is right on point for the era into which the novel and its characters have been born. Cauley’s comedic and literary chops had this reader guffawing at her characters’ self-serving, oh-so-trendy ridiculousness, then flunking the mirror test. Wait a minute. That’s me.
..[a] fleet and funny debut novel ... Cauley’s book is as comedic as is it caffeinated — not merely because Aaron knows his way around a Chemex pour-over, but because Aretha’s internal monologues, delivered in a smooth third-person intimate, go a mile a minute ... The Survivalists has notes of darkness and a well-balanced acidity that shouldn’t come as a surprise to readers of Cauley’s opinion pieces for GQ, The Atlantic, and The New York Times, among others ... Cauley’s prose is often laugh-out-loud funny, and though a couple of leaps are wobbly, the author is wonderfully attuned to matters of Blackness and the ways a current generation lives, enjoys, and — yes — suffers.
The elements are in place for another thriller, but to her credit, Ms. Cauley mostly sees the survivalism as a chance for some pretty withering comedy ... Splendidly dry humor.
Inventive but uneven ... The Survivalists pokes and prods at this generational malaise: How do you cope in a failing society? ... Cauley...has shown herself to be a master of diagnosing our nation’s troubles through acerbic humor. She flashes this power early in The Survivalists with efficient sketches of Aretha’s life ... Cauley’s quick wit flickers across these pages as her comedy carries us from scene to scene ... The novel takes a sinister turn, but Cauley maintains a steady hand, approaching her portrait of doomsday preppers with more curiosity than suspicion ... There’s a nail-biting urgency to the juxtaposition of Aretha’s fledgling survivalism and her increasingly clumsy performance at work, contributing to the sense that The Survivalists would make for a thrilling screen adaptation ... Its success on the page is shakier. Cauley can be coy, even withholding, when it comes to fleshing out people in Aretha’s orbit. As the action sequences move to the front, character development collapses. Repetitive observations coupled with a baggier style loosen the novel’s hold on our attention ... The Survivalists circles compelling questions — about the history of gun use in America, the relationship between work and identity, what capitalism encourages us to value — as Aretha juggles the ethical implications of the house with her crumbling legal career. But these stretches are too often interrupted by dutiful exposition. The effect is a jagged, tempered narrative that flaunts Cauley’s sharp humor but only partially commits to finishing what it started.
This debut by former Daily Show writer Cauley is compulsively readable as it tracks Aretha’s dizzying downward spiral with incisive observation, logic, and dark humor and delves into the perils of the thrill of the fringe and the limits of anyone’s power to control their environment.
...[a] well-crafted if schematic debut ... Cauley’s understanding of plot is impeccable and she keeps the tension taut as Aretha gets more involved with the group, but though the author lightly grapples with the politics of gun ownership, the matter is ultimately reduced to cheap thrills, and the characters are written to type. It’s a good story, but it should have gone straight to screenplay.
Cauley’s experience as a Manhattan antitrust lawyer infuses the office scenes with authentically cutthroat competition, and her comedy-writing chops shine in hilariously succinct characterizations ... But what really sets this debut novel apart is its finely tuned balance between extremes: humor and drama, conspiracy and reason, careful preparation and total chaos. Funny and fresh, Cauley’s prose moves dynamic characters through a vivid, living New York City.
