Beta Vulgaris: A Novel
Elise and her boyfriend, Tom, set off for Minnesota, hoping the paycheck from the sugar beet harvest will cover the rent on their Brooklyn apartment. Amidst the grueling work and familiar anxieties about her finances, Elise starts noticing strange things: threatening phone calls, a mysterious rash, and snatches of an ominous voice coming from the beet pile.
When Tom and other coworkers begin to vanish, Elise is left alone to confront the weight of her past, the horrors of her uncertain future, and the menacing but enticing siren song of the beets. Biting, eerie, and confidently told, Beta Vulgaris harnesses a distinct voice and audacious premise to undermine straightforward narratives of class, trauma, consumption, and redemption.
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Community Reviews
Elise as the main character really makes or breaks the reading experience. If you tolerate Elise, you’ll tolerate the novel. If you hate Elise, you’ll hate the novel. For me, it was mixed. I really appreciated Elise’s brutal honesty about her struggles. Her social anxiety, her money problems, her body image, her self-loathing, etc. These are all issues many young adults deal with.
My main problem with Elise is that she never reaches any character arc or growth throughout the novel. You end up reading the whole book waiting for something to happen, but nothing does. I am not opposed to open endings, but you also have to give readers something concrete to interpret. It just feels incomplete. This novel is not that long, but in all honesty, it could have been shorter. There is a lot of repetition.
The novel feels like it wants to be the script for an A24 film. I wanted it to be like Midsommar (2019). It was not. I could still see it adapted into an A24 film. They would definitely have to add stuff to make it more entertaining. I would watch it.
Despite all my criticisms, I still look forward to Margie Sarsfield’s future work.
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