"Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre," by Max Brooks

NOTE

Multiple Bigfoot can be called Bigfoots, Bigfeet, or just Bigfoot. All of those terms will be used interchangeably throughout the book as well as the terms Sasquatch and Bigfoot for an individual which is the name that is used in official documents used in the book.

Greenloop was a high tech eco community that was placed in the wilderness near Mt. Rainer. Despite it being miles from civilization its residents were “as wired in as anyone in Upper West Manhattan.” Thanks to modern communication the world felt very small but when the eruption of Mt. Rainer cut communication, the world suddenly became very large. A group of Bigfeet who were fleeing the eruption of the mountain and stalking prey came across the isolated group of humans who were quickly forced to confront the reality of their situation. The book is split between the diary of Kate Holland that was found in the wreckage of the village and commentary from experts like her brother and a senior park ranger who was in charge of the case as well as excerpts from books written about Bigfoot. Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre is a chilling tale of the reality of nature and the lengths people will go to to survive.

The author Max Brooks is the son of the director Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft. He was born in 1972 and is still alive today. His first book, The Zombie Survival Guide showed how to survive the zombie apocalypse detailed in World War Z, his most well known book which even got a movie adaptation. He has made many zombie books and other horror stories like the 2020 book Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre. On the other end of the writing spectrum he made the kids book trilogy Minecraft The Island, Minecraft The Mountain, and Minecraft The Village.

In the beginning of Devolution there isn't much of a conflict. The book doesn’t really start to get interesting until about halfway through. In the beginning what little conflict there is happens between the members of the village as well as a feeling of resentment from Kate towards her husband Dan. The first major conflict is when the volcano erupts and a mudslide destroys the road to the highway. A short time after that a cougar tries to attack a little girl named Palomino but is stopped by an older European lady from the former state of Yugoslavia named Mostar. This starts a conflict between Mostar and one of the “leaders” of the town who is quickly humbled and it is made very clear that Mostar is the only one who knows what to do to keep them alive. Kate then takes a walk down the road to the highway but stops when she sees what she at first thinks is a boulder but turns out to be a Sasquatch. She runs away and that is when the true conflict begins. The conflict plays out as the Bigfoots surround and attack the village. They slowly get more and more aggressive and encouraged as they find that the humans are easy prey. Throughout the middle of the book two humans are killed. One was killed as he was stupidly trying to hike away despite the fact that he knew they were surrounded and the other was killed in the comfort and “safety” of his own home. That causes Mostar to panic as she realizes that the Bigfoots are ready to launch a full scale attack. The members of the village go to the home of the people who Kate once saw as “leaders” where they have been shut since they were humbled after the cougar attack. They find that their former “leaders” have completely lost it and then they are attacked by the troop of Bigfoots. The Bigfoots kill the two former “leaders” as well as Mostar. The outcome of the conflict is that Kate leads the villagers to a full on war against the Bigfoots and they manage to kill most of them but in the fight all of the villagers are slain except for Kate and Palomino and all their homes are destroyed except for the village common house. After the smoking war-torn remains of the village were discovered by the government all that they found of Kate and Pal were spears, Kate's diary which the book is based on, and dozens of bags of Sasquatch Jerky.

In the beginning of Devolution Kate is seen by others and herself as being kind of a wimp in how she avoids and hates conflict. She has good social skills  and is able to read other people very well. Her brother describes her as his “soft, sensitive baby sister.” Her character begins to change about halfway through the book when she realizes what has to be done to survive. She overcomes personal fears. As Mostar says “Adversity introduces us to ourselves.” and her circumstances change her and show who she truly is, a much tougher and stronger person than she ever thought she could be. By the time the true leader dies there is no question who their new leader should be. By the end of the book she has devolved to a killer animal, the leader of what she even goes so far as to call a tribe. During the final battle with the Bigfoots that was written about in her journal she writes that she and the others lost all sense of who they were and became total animals as they savagely attacked a wounded Sasquatch. One quote truly shows how far she devolves and how savage she becomes. “I remember laughing. No words, words are for thinking animals, for human beings. Laughing and grunts and tight little moans of joy.” 

The outcome of Kate's journey is unknown as her journal ends after the final fight with the Bigfoots. Her brother has four theories about how her and Pal’s story ended. In the first theory the Bigfoots came back and killed them while they were vulnerable. However her brother doesn’t think that it's likely as she would have been very careful to always be alert. In the second theory she and Pal set out one day to try to find a way back to civilization and were caught out in a strong blizzard that hit the area soon after the eruption of Mt. Rainer and were killed. He finds this one somewhat likely but so far her body has not been found. In the third theory Kate and Pal made it, they found a cave and lived on Bigfoot jerky and melted snow through winter until they made it back. Someday they will wake up in a hospital and tell someone who they are. He likes this theory the most but he thinks it unlikely because of what she wrote in her journal “We have to kill them all.”

In the final scenario she went after the Bigfoots, to hunt them and kill them for food. She and Pal used the same brutal hunting tactics that the Bigfoots used on them to kill them. He even goes so far as to express pity for the Bigfoots, saying “I hope their brains aren’t too advanced to imagine fate, to know their babies won’t live long enough to reach adulthood. I also hope they’re not intelligent enough to feel remorse. ‘What have we awoken!’ If there’s anything worse than visualizing your death, it’s knowing you caused it.” He thinks this is the most likely scenario based on what Kate wrote in her journal. His final words to the author are “Hard to accept why she left the journal behind. She never said it but I know. One journey ends, another begins. Hard to reconcile the memories of my soft, sensitive baby sister with the predator that might be out there now. Mother of a tribe of two. The killer apes.”

This is one of my favorite books and I think Max Brooks is an amazing author. One of my other favorite books, World War Z, was also written by him. I like how he writes his books to always include lots of context, analysis and information by professionals. I like how the book tries to show the true nature of humans and the flaws of the society we live in. It shows how nature is dangerous and despite how disconnected or above it humans may feel, we are still part of nature and it can still harm us. It's not some perfect thing to be idolized and romanticized, it's messy, cruel and savage. The book does a very good job of conveying this message. Overall the book Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre is an amazing story of the limits that humans can be pushed to to survive and what happens when they are pushed past those limits. It is a good book for anyone who has enjoyed Max Brook’s other works as well as anyone who likes cryptid survival books. It would be a great gift to give someone for Christmas although it's kind of too late now (at the time of me writing this paragraph Christmas is in two days.) This book truly shows how close humans are to falling apart and devolving back to the natural way of life. How easy it is for humans to snap, to go insane and go savage. This quote talks about what happens to the first leaders after they realize what is really happening “It hadn’t even been two weeks. That quick for someone to fall apart? That easy? I guess it depends on who you are to begin with, how tightly you’re already holding on. Adversity introduces us to ourselves. Nice to meet you,” This is one of the best books I’ve ever read and anyone who connects with that quote should read this book.