A Review of Tosca Lee’s The Line Between (Howard Books, 2019).

Posted by: lesliejfernandez

A Review of Tosca Lee’s The Line Between (Howard Books, 2019).

By Stephen Hong Sohn

Well, it’s been a minute since I’ve been able to finish a full novel. I feel like I’m in the middle of about five right now. It’s a really bad habit. My copy of Tosca Lee’s The Line Between (Howard Books, 2019) arrived recently, and though I knew I was supposed to finish some other books, I dove right in. I’ve been a fan of Tosca Lee’s work for quite some time. She knows how to write for plot. There’s always a great hook to the storyline. The Line Between is no different. The opening brings up dead pigs and strange slaughters, then it shifts over to a narrative concerning a cult. Our narrator is Wynter Roth, and she’s just been exiled from The New Earth cult. We’re not quite sure why, but we know she doesn’t really want to go, despite what are not ideal circumstances in that community. As she adjusts to life outside the cult, weird things are happening. A bunch of individuals have dead due to what seems to be rapid early onset dementia. They don’t know what’s going on, and they don’t know if it’s contagious, but… of COURSE it is, since that’s the whole point of moving the plot forward. So, folks, we have our outbreak narrative.

 

I didn’t expect this thing to entirely come together. Something about cults, disease coming from the permafrost, and an outbreak narrative, didn’t necessarily seem to gel together (at least at first). Eventually though the cult aspect actually seemed quite logical given where this novel ends up going. Here is where I will pause for my spoiler warning, reminding you that you should not read on unless you want to be spoiled. So, the cult aspect is something that seems right for this novel precisely because Wynter is heading toward a plot resolution that necessarily involves a potential and radical reformulation of community dynamics due to the outbreak itself. The kind of isolation that Wynter exists within while in the cult has some relational connection to the level of sequestration she then faces while attempting to find a cure for REOD (rapid early onset dementia).

 

Lee has her hands full because she also decides to throw in a romance plot. I tend to find these elements to be less compelling in novels involving what seem to be end-of-the-world scenario, but I suppose there must be multiple forms of hope that are possible in such fictional worlds. When the novel ends, there’s already a snippet provided revealing that there will be more to the story, so I can’t wait for the next installment! Perhaps, what’s most impressive is the way Lee continually pushes her own aesthetic approaches. She has published a number of what I can only call religious “counterfictions,” and then moved on to a series that reimagined the descendants of the Countess of Bathory (infamously known as one of the most prolific serial killers). Now she’s given us this outbreak narrative, so she continues to explore these new genres. I haven’t had a chance to read her co-authored works with Ted Dekker, so there’s always more to catch up on.

 

Buy the Book Here:

 

Review Author: Stephen Hong Sohn
Review Editor: Leslie J. Fernandez

If you have any questions or want us to consider your book for review, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email!
Prof. Stephen Hong Sohn at ssohnucr@gmail.com
Leslie J. Fernandez, PhD Student in English, at lfern010@ucr.edu

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