By Cody Lakin

PEST, by Michael Cisco, is probably the weirdest book I’ve ever read. Going into a book about a man with an unexplained parallel life as a yak, I did NOT expect that, at a certain point, the yak scenes would end up feeling normal compared to the book’s other parts. But here we are.

Part of Cisco’s author bio, on Goodreads anyway, says “He is interested in confusion.” I’m glad I read that line before entering the pages of PEST, because that line ended up serving as a guide, or a key, to understanding what this book did to my brain. There is much we can learn, I feel, from the experience of confusion, the liminal space between and before understanding.

What to say about this unprecedented work? For one, there’s no way I can properly express just how unhinged it feels as a work of fiction. It had me consistently laughing out loud, sometimes to the point of having to set the book down for a moment to gather myself, then picking it up again and rereading several paragraphs in awe of the absurdity and hilarity. Sometimes that absurdity took dark turns into the uncomfortable and disturbing. Then, at turns, there’d be something so vulnerable and beautiful, I could hardly believe the emotions bubbling within me. Not to mention how it’s all wrapped in such command of language, such breathtaking feats of prose. I read much of the book aloud to myself in order to better taste and absorb the language.

PEST seems to exist entirely in its own context; it doesn’t care if you’re keeping up, if you understand exactly what’s happening or why. Somewhere in the middle, I realized I couldn’t engage with this story in the ways I’m accustomed to engaging with narrative, and so I gave myself to the confusion, trusting there’d be some semblance of meaning or understanding—even if only the emotional kind—by the end. There absolutely was. Which is to say: by the end, I was in awe of Cisco‘s storytelling.

From the yak’s confusion and anticipation of the annual rut, to his loneliness in remembering his human life; from the man Chalo’s bewilderment over his life’s course and the absurdity of his companions, to his shaken sense of self, his capacity for sacrifice, and the weight of the desire and love that aches within him; to what feels, by nature of the book’s structure, like the cruelty of fate and the inevitability of time, observed from such unthinkable spaces as to render it all both funny and incredibly sad.

This is not a book to come to seeking answers, at least not the ones you’d expect. It put me through all sorts of emotions, most of them unexpected in their gravity and depth—that is, when I wasn’t reeling at some of the weirdest, even wackiest moments I’ve encountered in fiction, from the deadpan to the borderline slapstick. Into the experience of it I took the tools I’ve learned from many different mediums of weird art that I love, and it challenged me and rewarded me immensely. I feel like anything I read next will feel way too normal; in fact, I’m not sure I’m ready for any normality. I am all about that yak life now. Unsure if I require help.

Call me an excited new fan of Michael Cisco’s weird fiction. What a wild introduction this was.

You can purchase PEST by Michael Cisco at this link.

This review is by author Cody Lakin. Check out his books at this link.

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