MISSY'S TWITCH

In Pepper’s novel, a young woman, wracked by anxiety over the earth’s environmental degradation, becomes the poster child for a newly named nervous disorder.

New Yorker Missy Mayburn Crowe is so anxious about the effects of climate change on the planet that she develops a nervous twitch in her right arm—a tic she finds embarrassing. In addition to fear, she’s freighted with feelings of guilt, as she hails from a wealthy family that made its money in the energy business; in fact, she nominally works for the Crowe Power Company as the vice president of strategy at its green subsidiary, CroFusion. Her psychologist, Dr. Iz, a charlatan, immediately sees opportunity in Missy’s condition and spontaneously invents a new disorder, “climatosis,” which he characterizes as an affliction that threatens to become a “mass psychogenic illness.” Practically overnight, Missy becomes—as her mother, Lindsey Harper Crowe, the chairperson of the company, puts it—the “global mascot” for the new ailment. The president of the United States, Dewey Fenwick, declares a National Climatosis Emergency, authorizes the Defeat Climatosis Act, and even establishes a Federal Climatosis Commission. The Chinese government is equally enthusiastic to do its part, but only as a means to push the United States into economically self-destructive acts. Pepper’s plot is satirically sharp and wittily portrays how opportunistic cynicism can drive fearmongering, and the hypocrisy of those who publicly express their fears while privately refusing to curb reckless, indulgent behavior. Occasionally, the novel hits a didactic, sermonizing note; for example, the principal role of Missy’s friend, Blair, seems to be to provide a counterpoint to Missy’s intemperance, but her characterization (“I’m a skeptic, alright? So many of these climate horror stories seem like the same bullshit they’ve been peddling for years”) also involves a fair amount of preachiness. However, this is a generally thoughtful work that’s edifying, entertaining, and often very funny.

An enjoyably irreverent depiction of political alarmism.