Bad Nature

Armed with a terminal diagnosis, a grudge, and a rental car, Hester sets out to fulfill her lifelong dream of killing her father in this brilliantly subversive and bleakly funny debut novel.

“Bad Nature shows we’re getting selfishness all wrong. As uproariously funny as a takedown of our deadly society can be, the novel is also an urgent call to exchange possession for belonging.”
—Alissa Nutting, The New York Times

When Hester is diagnosed with terminal cancer on her fortieth birthday, she knows immediately what she must do: abandon her possessions and drive to California to kill her estranged father. With no friends or family tying her to the life she’s built in New York City, she quits her wildly lucrative job in corporate law and starts driving west. She hasn’t made it far when she runs into John, an environmental activist in need of a ride to different superfund sites across the United States. From five-star Midwestern hotels to cultish Southwestern compounds, the two slowly make their way across the country. But will the revelations they experience along the way dissuade Hester from her goal?

Ragingly singular and surprisingly moving, Bad Nature is a story of stunning detours and twists until its final destination. Part road-trip novel, part revenge tale, part lament for our ongoing ecological crisis, it’s ultimately a deft examination of the indulgence of holding grudges, moral ambivalence, and the eternal possibility of redemption.

These discussion questions were provided in partnership with the publisher, Henry Holt and Co.

Book club questions for Bad Nature by Ariel Courage

Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.

“This was the plan: drive west, find Dad, kill Dad, then self. I didn’t even want to try to get away with killing him. I was dying anyway; I might as well end it there.” What role does Hester’s cancer play in the novel? In what ways is her mindset influenced by her diagnosis? What was your initial reaction to hearing about her plan for her final days?

How would you characterize Hester and John’s friendship? What are some pivotal moments in the development of their friendship? Is their bond surprising to you? Why or why not?

A large portion of the novel is concerned with the environment and environmental activism. In what ways are Hester’s terminal diagnosis mirrored in the state of the climate and environment?

Although readers are made aware of Hester’s anger toward her father from the very beginning of the novel, the details of his abuse are not divulged until later. Why do you think the author made this choice? How might the story have been different if it was told chronologically?

“Mom and I did not discuss that night again. All I know is that he did not come back.” How would you characterize Hester’s relationship with her mother? In what ways did Hester’s father continue to shape the relationship between her and her mother, even after he was no longer a part of their lives?

Was Hester a likeable protagonist to you? Which of her qualities, if any, give you pause? Which of them, if any, help redeem her?

“I thought she was histrionic in the way virgins sometimes were. It seemed to me that crying sexism while also working for a firm that protected the interests of exploitative global capital signified either naivete or cynicism more wolfish even than mine.” What did you make of Hester’s friendship with Robert at her firm? Were you surprised by her reaction to the accusations against him? Why or why not?

What was the significance of the day Hester and May traveled to New York to meet May’s father? What about that visit made Hester sure that she wanted to kill her own father?

In a change of heart, Hester decides not to kill herself following the death of her father. What do you think catalyzed this change? Why do you think Hester chose to take the blame for her father’s “new ex-wife”?

“Turning 40 was nothing special. I was an unmarried, childless lawyer living in one of Manhattan’s many nondescript condos.” This is how Hester describes herself at the onset of the novel. How do you think she would describe herself by the end of the novel?

Bad Nature Book Club Questions PDF

Click here for a printable PDF of the Bad Nature discussion questions

Praise for BAD NATURE:

“Ariel Courage’s debut is a fork jabbed into the electric socket of America. You can’t look away and, thanks to its bitter wit, can’t stop laughing....Deeply impressive, at times uncomfortable....Many novels portray what life feels like. A rarer strain captures what it looks like, at this moment, warts and all....[A] sun-blasted comic wonder.”
—Los Angeles Times

“Humor, awe, and grief combine as Hester and an unplanned passenger drive across our confounding nation.”
—The Boston Globe

“Courage debuts with the devilishly alluring tale of a terminally ill New Yorker who embarks on a road trip to kill her abusive and long-estranged father. . . . The layered narrative grows intriguingly complex as Hester approaches her destination. Readers will find this a surprisingly moving portrait of a deeply wounded woman.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Courage delights and challenges with this mashup of emotions....Bleakly funny, gloomy, and magnetic, this novel's revenge-fueled, terminal road trip will tender surprising truths.”
—Shelf Awareness

“Courage’s atmospheric debut novel crackles with refreshing honesty, disarming cynicism, and evocative staying power.”
—Booklist

“What starts as a bitter internal dialogue becomes a rich overlap of the personal and the political.”
—Kirkus

“Add Hester to the canon of unlikeable female characters I can’t look away from, and Bad Nature to novels I couldn’t put down. Dark, aloof, disciplined – this novel is reminiscent of the best of Ottessa Moshfegh or Emma Cline. I thought it was brilliant.”
—Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes

“Wicked and wickedly funny, Ariel Courage’s debut Bad Nature is a dark romp of a book, a road-trip novel propelled by a revenge plot. Nihilism and optimism collide in this story featuring a woman who is simultaneously confronting her childhood and her death. Hester is a caustic yet irresistible narrator, and this evocation of her journey across America reads as both hate mail and love letter to a complex country. Bad Nature is raw, intense, and absolutely mesmerizing.”
—Helen Phillips, author of Hum

“Ariel Courage’s writing is so self-assured, so piercing. She's like Ottessa Moshfegh's environmentally conscious cousin. Unflinching and darkly funny, Bad Nature is a staggering debut.”
—Anna Dorn, author of Perfume & Pain

“Bad Nature is a rare gift; an audacious, insane, and relentlessly American first novel. Ariel Courage casts halogenic light upon the only question still worth considering in these, the earliest days of our extinction: What are we to do with our wretched time left? A propulsive, often terrifying remaking, through gray-eyed and perfect metaphor, of the nihilist manifesto, the road-trip tale, and the revenge plot—all, stunningly, at once.”
—Alexandra Tanner, author of Worry

“Bad Nature is a disarmingly dark and hilarious take on the road novel and small-n noir. Or is it an eco-thriller? Either way I found Hester an addictively readable narrator: shrewd, catty and vengeful. I loved how the novel manages to smuggle in both environmental ethics and a contagious tenderness in spite of itself; a paean to daughters of disappointing fathers everywhere. I was utterly gripped.”
—Daisy Lafarge, author of Paul