Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

Published in 2020, Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre is an epistolary horror novel by American author Max Brooks. Brooks is best known for his novel World War Z (2006), which blends nonfiction techniques with speculative narrative elements, and he uses a similar mix of scientific realism, nonfiction techniques, and horror elements to tell a survival story centering on the mythical Bigfoot. In 2021, Devolution was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Horror Novel.

Unfolding through a compilation of journal entries, interview snippets, and excerpts from fictional texts, Devolution chronicles the destruction of Greenloop, an eco-community founded near Mount Rainier. When Rainier’s sudden eruption causes widespread devastation across the Pacific Northwest, Greenloop residents adapt to their isolation from society and the rising threat of predatory Bigfoots. Resident Kate Holland records her experiences, which offer insight into what happened to her community. The story explores several themes: Resilience as a Catalyst for Personal Growth, The Folly of Human Ambition, and How Extreme Circumstances Can Provoke Latent Violence.

This study guide refers to the eBook edition of the novel, published by Del Rey in 2020.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, animal cruelty and death, illness, death, cursing, physical abuse, mental illness, disordered eating, bullying, emotional abuse, racism, religious discrimination, and gender discrimination.

Plot Summary

The novel opens after the fictional eruption of Mount Rainier, which disrupts life across the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. An unnamed editor publishes the diary of a woman named Kate Holland, which Senior Ranger Josephine Schell discovered and Kate’s brother, Frank McCray Jr., passed along. Kate was formerly a resident of Greenloop, an eco-community near Rainier that the eruption isolated. In the ruins of Greenloop, Schell found the journal but no sign of Kate herself. Both Schell and Frank claim that the journal holds the only clue about what really happened to Greenloop. The book presents the journal in its entirety, occasionally interspersing entries with excerpts from the editor’s interviews with Frank and Schell in addition to related literature.

Kate’s journal begins on September 22. She arrives in Greenloop with her husband, Dan, having accepted Frank’s invitation to move into his vacant house. Kate doesn’t realize that Frank intended to expedite the end of her marriage, believing that Kate would do better without Dan. Kate and Dan, who married after college, have had a strained relationship since Dan’s attempts to kickstart the tech industry in Los Angeles failed. Kate grudgingly tolerates Dan’s listless behavior but feels trapped.

Greenloop is an eco-community founded by Tony Durant, a savvy capitalist who wants to prove that sustainability and comfort are compatible lifestyle values. The community relies heavily on tech-driven support systems, so community residents enjoy urban lifestyles without residing close to a major city. The Hollands are welcomed by their new neighbors, including Tony and his wife, Yvette; Vincent and Bobbi Boothe; Carmen, Effie, and Palomino Perkins-Forster; Dr. Alex Reinhardt; and artist-in-residence, Mostar. Kate realizes that Mostar lives at odds with the others, primarily because her eccentric and frank manner clashes with their forced positivity.

Kate works through the challenges of social acclimation and everyday anxieties with the help of her psychotherapist. When Dan’s listlessness embarrasses Kate in front of Mostar, Kate turns to Yvette, who uses meditation to help her connect with Oma, the protective spirit of the forest.

On October 2, Mount Rainier erupts, immediately disrupting Greenloop’s tech systems and cutting off their link to the outside world. Tony urges the community to wait for emergency services to arrive, though the flow of lahars (boiling mudslides) leaves all routes of access to the highway impassable. Mostar suggests an alternative plan of action, believing that they’ll remain stranded in Greenloop for some time. All but Kate and Dan reject Mostar’s plan, preferring to hope for help from emergency services.

Mostar enlists the Hollands to help develop a garden and a ration plan. In addition, Mostar asks Kate to learn the contents of their neighbors’ pantries, though Kate realizes that they’re evading her out of loyalty to the Durants. Two days after the eruption, Tony attempts to leave Greenloop unnoticed, but fails to reach the highway because of lahar blockages. The excursion leaves him dazed. Yvette steps in to fill the gap in leadership, echoing Tony’s plea to wait for emergency services to arrive. Meanwhile, Mostar teaches Kate to skin rabbits for meat and urges Dan to study their house’s technological systems.

While hiking, Kate detects a rancid odor and then begins to see fast-moving creatures in the woods. One of them chases Kate back to Greenloop, leaving Mostar anxious for their safety. On October 6, a mountain lion threatens Palomino, the adopted daughter of the Perkins-Forster family, prompting Kate to leap to the child’s defense. Mostar intervenes to save them, using a bamboo javelin to scare the mountain lion away. Yvette tries to discredit Mostar’s use of violence against the animal, but Mostar stands her ground, intimidating Yvette. The Durants enter voluntary self-exile in their house, and the others turn to Dan for help with their houses, elevating his status as the village handyman.

The following day, Kate and Dan discover that a larger predator violently killed the mountain lion. Finding an oversized humanlike footprint leads Kate to suspect that the predator is Bigfoot. Their neighbors, however, dismiss the carnage as the work of various scavengers. On October 9, Kate spots a Sasquatch on the Greenloop perimeter, which confirms her suspicions. Kate tries to convince her neighbors of what she saw, but even Mostar, caving into social pressure, supports the group’s bear theory. She later admits to the Hollands that she’s not only hesitant to challenge the group’s collective denial of the truth, but also afraid of the predator’s unknown nature. The next time the Sasquatch visits Greenloop, it comes with companions. The Hollands record footage of the creatures on their iPad and show it to their neighbors to prove their claim.

The neighbors downplay the threat of the Bigfoots, arguing that they’re likely herbivorous and pose no real threat to the human community. When they hear the Bigfoots performing wood-knocking noises, Vincent responds to them in kind, intending to communicate a desire for friendship. This provokes the Bigfoots into launching a rock bombardment against Greenloop. The next morning, Vincent resolves to search for help, setting out alone into the foggy woods.

To restore community morale, Kate proposes a community dinner. The dinner is a success until the group hears Vincent’s screams. Bobbi urges her neighbors to help her search for him. Reinhardt angrily opposes her plea and experiences an intense panic attack. Right then, the Bigfoots launch a second bombardment. In the morning, Kate and Dan set out to discover what happened to Vincent. They come across the lair of the Bigfoots, who threaten them for their intrusion. Mostar comes to their rescue, discovering in the process that the Bigfoots are afraid of fire. Mostar scolds Kate for her recklessness and then teaches her how to fashion spears of her own and never leave Greenloop unarmed. Kate realizes that Mostar’s behavior was shaped by her past as a Bosnian Muslim who experienced the Siege of Mostar City in the 1990s.

Kate is encouraged when she sees her garden beginning to sprout, inspiring her neighbors to expand it into a community garden. Their shared excitement ends, however, when they discover that a Bigfoot infiltrated Reinhardt’s house and killed him. Mostar orders the residents to fortify themselves in the Greenloop Common House. The group finally gets the Durants to open their door, but discovers that the couple has been living in a state of extreme neglect. Interrupting their intervention, the Bigfoots stage a surprise attack, killing Tony, Yvette, and Mostar, the last of whom dies while killing a Bigfoot that Kate named Consort.

Galvanized by Mostar’s death and the destruction of her garden, Kate resolves to eradicate the Bigfoots. Over the next two days, she and her neighbors surround the perimeter with traps. In addition, Kate fashions specialized weapons using the community’s knife supply. On October 17, as the Bigfoots launch another assault, she desecrates Consort’s corpse, causing many aggrieved Bigfoots to fall into the traps, which also destroy the surrounding houses. During the last stand, Bigfoots kill Bobbi, Carmen, Effie, and Dan. When Kate slays Alpha, the Bigfoot leader, the surviving Bigfoots retreat. The journal’s last entry describes Kate tending to her dead husband.

Schell reveals in her interview that the evidence recovered at the Greenloop ruins supports Kate’s account. Frank posits in his interview that Kate and Palomino now survive as predators in the woods, thriving on a shared objective to eradicate the Bigfoots. Frank and his ex-husband, Gary, continue their search through the woods for signs of Kate.