In this haunting novel about the end of the frontier dream, a man tries to reinvent himself in one of America's last wild territories, while his neighbor begins a crime spree that will tremble the nation.
An attempt to sort through Kaczynski’s contradictions, to acknowledge the manifesto’s prophetic elements while stressing it’s the product of a sociopath. That’s fine fodder for a novel — the stuff of Dostoyevsky, even — though Loskutoff isn’t trying to deliver a “Karamazov”-grade philosophical tale. Rather, Old King is a more modest blend of police procedural and great-outdoors yarn ... The plainspoken approach means some characters lack depth.
Evocative descriptions ... Loskutoff’s bone-deep love for his storied setting — and skill at expressing it — is the real driving force of the novel that ultimately makes the book so singular and affecting ... A perceptive commentary on the environmental and cultural upheavals that have plagued the 21st century — a searing indictment of the mistakes we’ve made in the past and a prescient warning about all we might become in the future.
What feels missing are the wherefores behind a program of systematic violence and a manifesto arguing for the destruction of modern life as we know it ... I reread Kaczynski’s manifesto and was struck by how banal it is. Many initial reactions were laudatory, but today its core argument seems striking in how revelatory it isn’t. Yes, technology has overtaken our lives, and yes, the natural world is paying a heavy price — but we still want insulin and prescription lenses. Maybe that’s why Loskutoff doesn’t put Kaczynski front and center: He doesn’t have anything to say.
