The Exclusion Zone

Sometimes I am pulled to a novel simply because of the setting. If the setting is unique and offers as a catalyst for conflict and suspense in a narrative, I am drawn in and anticipate coming out of this space altered. Alexis von Koningslow’s speculative fiction, “The Exclusion Zone,” is set in the devastated landscape of post-Chernobyl. Amongst the backdrop of radiation forests and an abandoned urban sprawl, the author orients a secluded scientific community amongst this danger, excavating the remains of a ghostly society and devestated ecological footprint that once was.

The historical event that ripped open at Chernobyl is a universal wound for humanity in facing our true horrors and the devastations we can wreak on ourselves and our environment. There was much potential with this setting, the shell of a society abandoned, the haunting and disturbing atmosphere that could be cultivated made me anticipate an apocalyptic tone and plotline.

Published by Wolsak & Wynn in May this past spring, I’ve combed through the reviews and identify the current of conversation that puts forward the shortfalls of the storyline. Reviewers have noted the ambition of pursuing universal horrors and a critique of ethical perimeters sought in the novel, but the writing has fallen through for some reviewers, other reviewers could not connect fully with the main character, and others felt that the plotline ended shallow and unstimulating.

The author holds degrees in mathematical physics from Queen’s University and a degree in creative writing from the University of Guelph. Her knowledge of physics and the application of science in general within the novel is evident, as the reader sees through the eyes of the main character Renya, a scientist who studies fear through picture datasets and facial recognition. She strives to build a program that will help prevent future disasters like Chernobyl by isolating the observable behaviour of fear in body language and fine muscle recognition. Renya has escaped to Chernobyl from Toronto due to a troubled marriage and the shadow of a father who is a successful scientist, to pursue her work and to define her sense of self. Alexis layers the character arc of her female protagonist with her own scientific lens.

In an interview with On Creative Writing, Alexis gives context to this scientific scope in “The Exclusion Zone.” “I love to write about how science and studying science seeps into everyday life. I liked to write about how the questions we become fascinated by and consumed with inspire us and change us.” This passion is very much a backbone of the novel, in Renya, and the elite scientific world she treks through. Alexis delves deeper, “I love to write about safety too. This world wasn’t made for us. We were born into it. Feeling safe in the world in a choice, and it’s one that I often forget to make, so I love to write about that.” This dynamic plays out in the climax and resolution of the plot of “The Exclusion Zone,” in which Renya’s mentality shifts to a wider scope of human well-being as she comes to know the decay and Chernobyl wasteland better. Questions arise for Renya as she comes to understand and lift the veil of the unethical and politically-charged workings of the world around her. She questions the funding of her research, the data-sets of the findings of other scientists around her, and who are the men she encounters in a dead forest and what do they want? I anticipated learning something shocking and scathing in this novel that would re-orient me in negotiations of the repercussions of Chernobyl for humanity.

But, that re-orientation did not come, the application of fear to a wider lens was gleaned, but my reflection of what actually made me fearful of life in this novel is quite subtle but explicit. What I walked away from with this novel in terms of fear was not the potential of the risk and danger to health with the protagonist being exposed to the radiation of post-Chernobyl, but the way that female scientists were treated by the male scientific community instead. There is a bone-chilling facing of the reality of how women are discredited and hunted, even. Ironically, that treatment is what I fear more, whether intended by the author or not, I kind of laugh that this feeling is what I come away from the novel with and what the zone of exclusion actually was for me.

“I found one lever I can pull, with fear, but I have more questions, more ideas now. What if emotions can presage illness? What if the same techniques I use can be harnessed to monitor for heart attacks, imminent strokes, auto-immune conditions? What if I can scan for body heat and muscle activation to predict medical crises? I keep thinking about that, as I take pictures of scientists here. Emotions are cool, but there are processes even deeper, physiological ones that could open a window to peoples’ underlying health. Anyway.”

The growth in thought of Renya in contemplating that her work does not have to apply to potential disaster, but the detection of illness and disease in general is the trajectory of her character arc. This conversation evolves with the female comradeship Renya experiences with the other female scientists at Chernobyl. There has been critique by reviewers who work in the sciences themselves that the behaviour of the male characters is too exaggerated and trivializes the actuality of discrimination experienced by women in various fields. The explicit sexism depicted in the novel left the reviewer feeling that the characters were less real, more caricature. It was suggested that if the author could pull off this conflict more subtlety with nuances of the passive-aggressive nature of the adversity experienced, I pictured, then, more of a psychological plotline arcing through that would leave the reader disturbed. Sometimes those psychological thrillers leave the most lasting impressions.

I held on as Renya continued to explore the abandoned ruins of Chernobyl and was eager to feel out the ghosts and phantoms of a landscape stricken by death and disaster. There were two characters found within the forests and separate from the scientific community I was hoping would become ghost-like and almost not real in a juxtaposition of character orientation and play with magic realism.

However, the ghosts remain unseen, yet they are there.

“They whispered in the scientists’ ears from time to time, telling them to look up, asking them to zoom out. They blew in their faces to make them feel unsettled. They ran toward the birds to make them all take flight at once. They made them afraid, of what the scientists didn’t quite know. In that way, they offered what protection they could.”

Pointing the reader in the scope of contemplating disaster in a universal layer, the reader is left with the residue of ghosts as protectors, as witness to knowing the potential of greater danger and disaster.

Thank you to Alexis von Koningslow, Wolsak & Wynn and River Street Writing for the complimentary ARC copy in exchange for an honest review!