Beware the nonbinary narrator who insists they are nothing like their father

Say what you will about American exceptionalism, but one thing we really are exceptional at is lying. Some lies are small, like how we politely tell each other that we’re fine when we’re not. Some are much bigger, and are perpetuated by our president and his cronies. This is, in part, why the unnamed narrator of Zee Carlstrom’s debut novel, “Make Sure You Die Screaming,” has taken a vow of radical honesty. It’s been harder than they expected: “What the truth will actually do is tank your career, eradicate your remaining interpersonal relationships, bash your skull in with a baseball bat, and then set you free.”

“Make Sure You Die Screaming” follows its nonbinary narrator over the course of a few hazy, drunken, rage-filled days as they drive from Chicago to a small town in Arkansas, accompanied by their friend of two weeks, self-proclaimed “garbage goth” Yivi. Ostensibly, the narrator is going to Arkansas because their mom has asked them to come and help her find their father, who has disappeared again. But their journey South is just as much one of deliberate self-destruction, an epic flame-out that is clearly meant to climax once they arrive at their parents’ home — the prodigal child’s disastrous return.

(Flatiron)

Readers should always be suspicious of a narrator who insists they’re telling the truth, but I forgot this cardinal rule early in the novel, too distracted by the narrator’s other big claim: that they’re nothing like their missing father. “We do share a few qualities, obviously,” they admit. “But natural stuff — DNA or whatever — that’s where our similarities end. I have made damn sure of that.” Yet the book bubbles over with the narrator’s rage, which their father had in spades; they freely admit to being angry about a lot of things, including “the wars, the courts, the fascists, the economy.” Really, though, the narrator is angry because they’re grieving the death of their best friend and creative partner, they’ve finally gotten up the courage to leave their long-term, probably abusive boyfriend, and they’re finally figuring out that they haven’t been fine in a very long time.

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It’s unclear exactly how much time passes during the novel — we know it’s June when it begins and July 4th when it ends — and it’s just as hard for the narrator to keep track of; they spend the vast majority of the novel drinking, drunk and/or hungover. The high jinks they get up to with Yivi are largely what you’d expect from a recently fired white millennial with a flair for drama and nihilistic tendencies: They drink and drive, shoplift from gas stations, finagle a free Motel 6 room, lose their clothes somewhere along the way and, of course, spend plenty of time bickering.

It’s fun to read, for sure, but there’s also a yawning pit of despair sitting beneath the narrator’s alternating tones of glib humor and seething rage. Yivi, who repeatedly asks the narrator to stop yelling at her, to stop treating her so poorly, is a sort of stand-in for the reader — she clearly enjoys the narrator, who is indeed enjoyable, but she’s also keenly aware that they’re on their way to hitting bottom and would prefer not to be yanked down there as well.

The narrator’s history is slowly revealed over the course of the drive to Arkansas and what follows their arrival at their mother’s home. But that history is constantly being readjusted and reconfigured depending on the narrator’s state of mind and the different versions they’re confronted with when they bump up against other people’s memories and narratives. Early in the book, for instance, the narrator confesses to being wanted for murder; not long after, they tell us they’ve murdered their best friend, Jenny; by the end of the novel, though, the story has changed. Has the narrator been lying to us? Not exactly. Mostly, they’re lying to themself, convinced of whatever they feel and think in the moment.

“I’m beginning to think I was put here to tell a bigger truth. Our truth,” they narrate in one of their more grandiose moments. “To carve away the rotten bits of my festering mind with Occam’s razor of the better angels of my greater nature. And while I am 100 percent positive that last thought did not make any f------ sense, it certainly felt true when I thought it, and that matters.” Indeed — truthiness, these days, far too often trumps the actual truth.

“Make Sure You Die Screaming” is, on the surface, ideologically coherent, its narrator very clearly on the left and furious at their parents’ descent into right-wing conspiracy theories and grievance politics. But over the course of the novel, the narrator’s certainty wavers, and they begin to recognize that, fundamentally, they are angry about all the same things their dad is. The difference is largely who they’ve each chosen to blame. Carlstrom has written a book that feels incredibly of the moment, twining together anger and glee, hope and despair, alienation and community.

Masad, a books and culture critic, is the author of the novel “All My Mother’s Lovers” and the forthcoming novel “Beings.”