Liquid Snakes

by Stephen Kearse

What if toxic pollutants traveled up the socioeconomic ladder rather than down it? A Black biochemist provides an answer in this wildly original novel of pollution, poison, and dark pleasure

In Atlanta, Kenny Bomar is a biochemist-turned-coffee-shop-owner in denial about his divorce and grieving his stillborn daughter. Chemicals killed their child, leaching from a type of plant the government is hiding in Black neighborhoods. Kenny’s coping mechanisms are likewise chemical and becoming more baroque—from daily injections of lethal snake venom to manufacturing designer drugs. As his grief turns corrosive, it taints every person he touches.

Black epidemiologists Retta and Ebonee are called to the scene when a mysterious black substance is found to have killed a high school girl. Investigating these “blackouts” sends the women down separate paths of blame and retribution as two seemingly disparate narratives converge in a cinematic conclusion.

Liquid Snakes is an immersive, white-knuckle ride with the spookiness of speculative fiction and the propulsion of binge-worthy shows like FX’s Atlanta and HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness. Transfiguring a whodunit plot into a labyrinthine reinterpretation of a crime procedural, Stephen Kearse offers an uncanny commentary on an alternative world, poisoned.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Thriller, Literary Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Novels, Adult Fiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published August 8, 2023

About the author

Stephen Kearse is a D.C.-based author, journalist, and arts critic. His reporting and criticism have been published in the New York Times, The Nation, NPR, Pitchfork, Slate, and other outlets. His short stories have been published in The Deadlands, Joyland, Plotter, and FIYAH.

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains interesting and important messages about environmental racism and classism. I can appreciate that Stephen Kearse tried to do something narratively different by avoiding a more linear or traditional storytelling method. Unfortunately, I found the book a bit difficult to follow plot-wise and at times even character-wise due to the more eclectic and unique writing style. Perhaps those who are more into speculative fiction as well as dark comedy may enjoy this book more than I did.

[Amy Biggart]

I'm entirely unsure what to say about this book ha, once I figure it out, you'll hear from me

[jocelyn • coolgalreading · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the premise but struggled with the execution. Thank you @softskullpress for the gifted copy.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a VERY hard time understanding this book. First the formatting is weird. Instead of standard page spacing, every paragraph ends with a return so every paragraph set off from the next with a white line (which to me usually indicates a break in the text or a change over to a new topic/etc.). It's more distracting than you would expect. (I get the irony of this complaint- since it's how I write my reviews on GR! Haha!)

Next is the prose. "There was a cold vacuum at the needlepoint of the rhapsody's center, a pinch of artifice, metallic like sugar in coffee, displaced like blood on the tongue. An opaque benefactor loomed behind the succor and generosity. The shadow force wanted something from her yet declined to disclose its motives, demanding her initials here, here, here, and here, wile insisting reading closely would be a waste of her time." (p. 40) If these words were lyrics or poetry I'd let it slide but it's genuinely supposed to be describing something important happening with one of the characters and I'm at a loss to understand what it is.

Fortunately, most of this type of prose does peter out as we get more into the plot of things. But that's my third level of confusion - why is this happening? There's just slightly veiled references to a tragedy that doesn't seem connected to the big picture in any concrete way. First there are innocent victims then there are more innocent victims? At least that's how it comes across.

I suppose what frustrates me is that the book clearly wants to tackle a big picture item - like chemical producers' "sacrifice zones" and the lack of government oversight of/toll of pollution in/on Black communities - but it takes on the form of a fairly stylized genre (medical thriller-ish) without giving us the background needed to make the thriller part make sense. I needed much more insight into Kenny and Maddy's motives. I found the idea of this product fascinating but the use of it completely baffling.

Finally, maybe I'm just terrible at reading-between-the-lines but I don't understand the point of the chapter that is an article about a cop who isn't involved in the plot at all (although his partner is) nor do I understand the importance of a mayoral candidates daughter and her friends or the impact of her return that ends the book. There are a lot of characters' points-of-view and not all of them seem to move the story. It's like trying to do a connect-the-dots but some of the numbers are missing - a general shape of a thing but the details are lacking.

Now, everything I said sounds like a complaint (and maybe it is) but I'd love to go to an author event to hear this book discussed - or maybe explained (and will probably do some Googling to see what's out there.) I also think the fact that there are so many missing pieces would make this a smash for book clubs - there's a lot to figure out and speculate about and that's what book clubs do best!

[Aimee LaGrandeur · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Liquid Snakes” is an ambitious debut that is brilliant and intense. It is a blazing indictment of post-racial America, interrogating all the ways that Black people still aren’t free. It explores layers off grief and flips the idea of environmental racism to posit what might happened if the pollutants—the poisons—moved up the socioeconomic ladder as opposed to down them.

For the most part, I thought “Liquid Snakes” artfully and satisfyingly executed a very interesting premise. It’s characters are so engrossing and well fleshed out in such little space. There is scant dialogue, we spend more time internally with the characters, with stream of consciousness moments that create an almost intimacy with them. The language is so vivid and so precise. It’s like every sentence feels like the best sentence out of a New Yorker article. For the majority of the time, this worked for me. It suits the atmosphere the author builds and creates and maintains a very specific tone that that can balance being casual with also being very evocative and poignant. However, I felt like at times it tipped into being over written in a way that obfuscated the plot or prevented us from ascertaining important details. Sometimes characters or agencies were introduced in this sort of astute flourish that I was so wrapped up in the imagery and the aesthetic the author was trying to convey and missed the more basic point of why that entity was relevant to the plot. This left me several times backtracking to look for those initial introductions to see what I had originally missed. I think this was especially true for the beginning of the novel, which made it initially a bit hard to sink into. But once I was in it, I flew through it trying to unravel the mystery and motivations.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading LIQUID SNAKES by Stephen Kearse! This book felt very cinematic to me. I would love to see an adaptation of it one day. This novel is a superb blend of crime drama, murder mystery and speculative fiction through an African-American lens. I liked the multiple perspectives, humour and focus on science and technology. There’s a new app EightBall, inventing a new drug RST, PCR machine and CDC epidemiologists. I really enjoyed the interesting writing that opened the book with the terms and conditions of EightBall and included text chats and reports. I loved the sharp chapter titles. There was one reference to Chick-fil-A that I totally got now since I just had it for the first time when I was in Toronto last month. I really liked how I didn’t know where this story was going the whole time and it was a great ride the whole way through.

Thank you to Soft Skull Press for my advance review copy!

[Ciaran Gardner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the sort of novel that grows on you. At the beginning it feels like something you could give or take, but around the two thirds mark there is something that means you just HAVE to finish it. Even now I’m questioning whether 3 stars is a little harsh. I did, however, have a few problems with the novel and thought that it was simply trying to do too much in the space that it gave itself and could have gone further in terms of exploring themes such as the treatment of black neighbourhoods (both in terms of public policy as well as corporate activity), and political corruption at odds with environmental investigation. A lot of what made this book really thought provoking and memorable are gaps that you have to fill yourself. This was a good thought experiment but could have pushed itself further with its form.

[Yolanda | yolandaannmarie.reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley, Catapult, Counterpoint Press, and Soft Skull for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Liquid Snakes releases August 8, 2023

“chacun prepare sa propre mort — everyone prepares their own death”

Liquid Snakes is a very creative and perplexing sci-fi story about toxic pollutants and race.

This story weaves together the perspectives of a few characters in an Atlanta setting:
- Ebonee and Retta, two CDC workers who are part of a team investigating suicides that present as chemical spills that turn into black sinkholes.
- Kenny, a biochemist turned coffee shop owner by day and manufacturer of designer drugs by night.

The overall vibe here is very reminiscent of speculative crime shows, while still bringing its own originality. It kind of reminded me of “Burden of Truth” in a sense, with the communities of marginalized individuals that keep getting illnesses linked to environmental pollutants.

It’s innovative and thought provoking, but was missing something that I can’t quite put my finger on… more detail on the actual sinkhole sites? More focus on the victims in relation to the app they used? More from Kenny and the minute details of how the venom concoction works to disintegrate so well or his daily injections?
While I did get a large sense of revenge throughout, I didn’t always feel Kenny’s grief.

cw: suicide, suicidal thoughts, uses the n-word a lot

[Kayla Conrad · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, the premise and its commentary felt like a recipe for a great read. But the style of writing just was not for me and I felt like lacked development.
Many times throughout this book was I completely lost in what was happening, emphasis on detail of a scene was oddly placed where some important and crucial things were rushed and haphazardly missed, while some scenes that had no relevance lasted pages.
The writing on a sentence level was amazing however, don’t get me wrong, but strung together it just lacked. We get perspectives of people that again, have no relevance to the story and yet not as much of a perspective from our main characters.
I really wanted to like this book since the premise sounded exciting and new, but after finishing I feel unsatisfied.

[Maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel has an incredible, original plot that sometimes gets weighed down by the very stylized writing. There is a lot going on here and it is all darkly entertaining and thought-provoking. If you liked Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood, I think you would really like this.

[Julia Booth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but at points too cryptic to understand the plot.

[Erin Crane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A weird one, but I mostly liked it. The writing style and some narrative choices make or break it for you because they are so distinctive.

The writing is dense. I wouldn’t say lyrical or poetic, just very precise. It’s not always accessible, so there are times when I read a paragraph and didn’t know what it meant.

There’s also a lot left to the reader to figure out narratively. Often there were times when I felt like I was missing something. A scene would play out and it would be clear something unspoken was communicated, but I didn’t always know what that thing was. Or there are things like a death certificate included with no context. I could see the dead person was perhaps Thurgood’s father and that the cause of death was contentious, but I didn’t know what else to do with that information.

But despite how opaque the book was at times, I was engaged. I loved the speculative bits, the precise writing (90% of the time), and the thematic content. It’s really sharp. And bleak if we are to see Kenny’s approach as the only one that would work. I saw some reviewers talk about “Black pessimism” which I hadn’t heard of, so this might be my introduction to that. I’m not Black, so I don’t feel like I can speak to the “rightness or wrongness” of this viewpoint, but it was very worth exploring via this book.

I saw that some reviewers disliked all the POVs and sidebars, but I loved it. It’s just story/message first writing on Kearse’s part, and I respect it. It reminded me of Chain-Gang All Stars - not because of the race commentary, though that is in both books, but because of the vignette feel of the chapters. I feel like Kearse could be a great short story writer.

Great read, but definitely not for everyone. Do not pick up if you want straightforward storytelling! *Do* pick up if you enjoyed Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, Erasure by Percival Everett, The Big Machine by Victor LaValle, Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James, Leech by Hiron Ennes, or Pew by Catherine Lacey. Those are all books that, to me, challenge the reader with the writing and/or storytelling. I’m trying to direct this book to the right hands 😂

[Alex Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the first true piece of afro-pessimistic fiction from a specualtive lens? Weird, thrilling, hilarious and quite dark, it's definitely Fight Club for Black people in 2023.

This book is intense, though it takes a while to get going. The pacing can feel deliberate, the aesthetic choices and storytelling devices sometimes strange (full news articles and death certificates dropped right into the novel like chapters), but the end result is nothing short of a masterwork.

The characters feel real, maybe a couple are a little underdone, and their fates are a mixed bag, but i enjoyed meeting them nonetheless. Oftentimes books so heavy on the (Keenan Ivory Wayans as a mailman voice) MESSAGE! can forget about good characterization and other storytelling techniques, but this book manages to make all the players feel real, distinct, and properly motivated.

But goddam, this shit is bbbllleeeaakkk. The premise is raw and the conclusions frustrating. As an afrofuturist, long battling afropessimism's penchant for nihilism (they don't see it as such..sigh), I found so much of the book arguable-- like i literally argued with so many of the characters out loud while reading it especially Kenny and thurgood-- even when I found the analysis interesting, the plot intriguing and the characters and voice laugh out loud funny.

Oh, it's about a community's struggle with environmental racism and the radical solutions that one of its victims goes through to bright light to, and finally end, the vile practice. Snake venom based serums, suicidal baseball players, neo-con gay Black mayoral candidates, southern Black vigilante groups, hard broiled epidemiologists...lots to unpack!So yeah, wild heavy!

Ultimately this is a must read for subversive Black fiction. Trigger warning for just-- like the whole thing is about suicide and Black mortality and corporeality so just know you're in for some wild shizzle. Bul can write his ass off though

[Traysee · Rating 3 out of 5]

March 21st, 2025 update: Okay so, reading this a second time helped with the understanding and comprehending- crazy how I said I'd never read this book again, I listen so well. I see now it's essentially a story of a grieving and vengeful father, but my opinion is simply he took it too far. It questions and makes you think how far you're willing to go for your children- even if they're stillborn. I'd go great lengths to take care of my child and protect my child, but I truly don't think preparing a drug and planning to use said drug to take down owners of a company that owns another company, etc. etc., will do much good. (end of March update)


I… honestly don’t know what to think of this book. I was uncomfortable with the verbiage used, but I enjoyed the plot until I didn’t. The end felt rushed and there seemed to be no real ending, more so just an open thought of what could be. The writing style was difficult for me to read, and it rarely kept my attention for long periods of time. Glad I finally finished this book so I can never read it again. And to think I was so excited to start this book. Hmm.

[Lexi Denee · Rating 5 out of 5]

**Thank you to NetGalley and Soft Skull Press for the eARC of this unique title**

As far as debut novels go, this one was wild and I greatly appreciated the unique concepts. Liquid Snakes follows several impressive characters, and their individual experiences of being black in Atlanta.

I was hooked from the start of this novel, with Ebonee from the CDC exploring the apparent suicide of a student that resulted in a massive sinkhole opening on the school grounds. So launched an investigation into the substance that caused the sinkhole, and the ultimate revenge plot against an evil corporation.

Kearse's writing reminded me a lot of P. Djeli Clark in Ring Shout, in the sense of racial exploration and looking at the ways that inequality still shatters lives to this day.

Check this book out if you like medical thrillers, suspense, and scifi. Kearse is definitely an author to look out for!!

[Hilary]

Dark wit combines with speculative crime in LIQUID SNAKES. In grief, a Black chemist plans lethal revenge against the chemical company responsible for his stillborn daughter’s death. Meanwhile, CDC epidemiologists are investigating a series of “blackouts,” a liquid leaving a trail of destruction. Unapologetic and raucous, with the tenor of SORRY TO BOTHER YOU and Percival Everett’s THE TREES, Kearse’s storytelling doesn’t slow down for anyone or anything. Though its fast-paced plot is sometimes at the expense of my own comprehension, it’s hard not to appreciate Kearse’s format of commentary on environmental racism and the multitude of other ways anti-Blackness continues to leech into our society.

Thanks to Soft Skull Press for the gifted copy.

[Tim Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is tough to review. There is a compelling story under the mess of written words. My biggest complaint is the character development. Not a single character felt real to me. This is so probably because everyone at every moment seemed to be at the end of their emotional strength and interacted with each other, familiar or stranger, with unfiltered snark. Additionally, the author's voice extended to articles within the book from other sources. Finally, I often got confused at what what trying to be conveyed because of wordplay that was forced and too frequent.

[Olivia · Rating 2 out of 5]

i’m sorry but this one was kind of a stinker for me. i was initially invested because the plot sounded super interesting, but i struggled with the writing style (so much unrelated information, i had a hard time telling what was relevant) and there wasn’t really anything that could redeem the rest of the book for me. on the other hand, i do think this book would make a great movie

[Maudaevee]

I am not sure I can give this book a rating because I was very unsure how I felt about the book. I do like how it was different from any other book I have read but I also found it somewhat hard going for the same reason.

[Craig Freeman · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was … awful. Every sentence was competing to be the most confusing and complex sentence with the biggest words. I couldn’t even tell you what the plot was. Sorry Justin thank you for buying me this book I appreciate it but this was a NAUR.

[Deanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a difficult read but would love to see this made into a movie/series

[Jacee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really couldn’t tell you what was going on here, my brain just couldn’t latch to this plot or the motivation. Points for cool cover art.

[Aaron McQuiston · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Liquid Snakes was released this past August, I saw ads for days on all of my social media. Most of the time, I can ignore the ads, but this one seemed persistent. The name of the book, along with the cover and author photo intrigued me. I am not a synopsis reader by nature. I like to go into books as cold as I can. This means I usually judge a book by it’s cover and by the press that published it. Soft Skull Press has been around for decades, and it is a press I have loved for a long time. For me to be inundated by ads for a novel to be released by Soft Skull Press, with the name, cover, and author photo that it had, I just had an inkling that this would be a book I would enjoy. They were right.


The story is split in half. The first is Kenny Bomar, a coffee shop owner who has also made a drug that will literally melt anyone who drinks it, turning them into a black hole of sludge right where they are standing. The second is about Ebonee and Retta, two women who work for the CDC that are trying to follow the trail of the drug and it’s manufacture, while also dealing with tensions between each other and everyone whom they have to negotiate with.

This is not a typical novel. There are weird quirks and sections that barely make sense to the rest of the novel at the time. Some moments pretend to pull away from the story, but there are also some of these parts that make me think that this story is bigger than the story that is being told. Stephen Kearse does not spend much time putting these pieces of the puzzle together for you, but lets you put them together in any order that you see fit. This is why some readers have had a hard time following the plot. The plot is not specific, and this is why different people will catch different meanings in this novel, and also why this novel is a good one to reread.

Even though Stephen Kearse has an interesting story in process, there are moments when he addresses the way that people in this country, black people specifically, are categorized and when they do not fit into the mold that is already built for them. White people do not always know how to react. Ebonee and Retta has more issues with this seeing as how many of the people they are trying to work with on their investigation, the men in charge, dismiss them immediately. This is when they go along their own path. Kenny also spends the entire novel going down his own path, and he is a character that does not hide his emotions. He has lost a child, and he is pissed at everyone, particularly those who let it happen. His grieving is going to affect everyone around him and his drug is manufactured from a place of anger and grief. He does not want retribution or reparations. He wants revenge. There are ideas in this novel that are much much bigger than the space that the idea is given, so this does make for a novel that feels a little off-kilter in places, and a little unfinished in others. This is not a perfect novel, but it is definitely a novel that will make me read Stephen Kearse’s next book.


Sometimes people ask me how I find the books that I read, movies that I watch, and music I listen to. I find that the easiest answer is that I do not look for these things anymore, but they all find me. Liquid Snakes is one of the prime examples of a book that found me. I am glad to have given it a chance, and the ad algorithm was right. This is the type of novel I enjoy, and I gravitate toward.

[Maya Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Former chemist turned coffee-shop owner Kenny is deeply grieving the loss of his stillborn daughter. To cope, Kenny brews the perfect cup of coffee, injects himself with Copperhead venom and concocts a revenge plan to destroy the company he holds responsible for her death using a self-created biochemical weapon called RST.

However, Kenny’s methods poisons more than corporate heads and seeps into the community around him. Meanwhile, two epidemiologists, Ebonee and Retta, are called to inexplicable crime scenes with masses of black goo and they must discover the cause before these incidents spiral into a national crisis.

Stephen Kearse’s Liquid Snakes cuts deep, peeling back the veneer of a post-racial America, to explore the varying experiences of Black Americans and their own solutions to the relentless pressure they endure through.

Liquid Snakes mainly follows Kenny, Ebonee and Retta but Kearse takes moments to dip into the complex worldview of strikingly compelling characters who bring their special brand of entropy into the chemical mix, each motivated in their actions by their own pain and relationship with their environment.

When the law, financial compensation, or community cannot provide the relief or answers they seek, he only answer seems to be the complete destruction of the white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy or pure oblivion and freedom from said reality— and one is easier to obtain than the other.

Liquid Snakes is cutting, brutally smart and often heartbreaking in its portrait of perpetual grief and hopelessness. Despite its place in speculative fiction, Liquid Snakes is firmly planted in the reality of what it means to be Black in America. Kearse has created a story that will leave you thinking long after you close the book.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was definitely different than most. I'm still not sure who was the "bad guy" here and that may have been part of Kearse's point as while he does paint a dismal picture of corporate greed, no one else comes off looking great. The traumatic impacts of environmental racism are made very clear throughout but Kearse keeps the obvious targets of derision almost outside the main story and instead delves deeper into how victims react and what happens if they take things to the extreme and happen to possess skills that allow this extreme to be something that may be just as evil.

The book itself is written in a purposefully disjointed way, with following a few characters mostly but doing some time and sometimes artifact jumping that can get a little confusing but does all tie together.

At the end, I was glad I read it - not sure I really enjoyed it, but was interesting.

[dash · Rating 2 out of 5]

the idea of the book was cool but the execution, i can’t lie i hated it. at several parts of the book all i could say was “right……” the author is obviously a skilled writer but at times the writing was so flowery and long-winded it felt like the book was more a graded writing exercise instead of a piece of literature. i understood the themes and messages that the author was trying to illustrate but i thought it was poorly done. turning black children into suicide bombers as a message for black rage made me roll my eyes. i do think it explores the interconnection of racism and classism in an interesting way but i think it could’ve been better executed.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I honestly had a lot of trouble fully understanding this one. The overarching commentary and plot are easy to grasp, but I was totally confused on a lot of the details. I think this story is told in a very interesting and unique way, but not necessarily an accessible way. The prose is great, but tended to be unclear. The pacing is also kind of odd, with whole chapters devoted to mostly details, and other times a huge amount being revealed within the span of a few paragraphs.

This was a super speedy read that kept me on my toes and turning the pages, but there were a lot of elements of the story that I wish had been explored more.

[Esmé Park · Rating 3 out of 5]

An original effort which (unfortunately) suffers from several ill-considered conceits -- the recipe for RST contributes absolutely nothing (and, in fact, diminishes the authenticity of the rest of the work due to its scientific ludicrous-ness) and the blurb adjacent manner of text formatting severely disrupts the narrative flow to an extreme not justified or founded anywhere within the text or concept of the work. Additionally, this stylistic decision flattens the work done to present each character with their own distinctive voices.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Truly a novel so weird and intense that it’s hard to know what to say about it! I felt a lot of ways about this experience. Part of me feels like it holds together strangely, part of me feels like it’s a failure of mine to understand it all. It is very stylized, very Black, changes perspective often, and it seems like an experiment in some ways. There’s a fake Rolling Stone article in the middle, material safety data sheets, a report called “Recommendations for Maintaining Corporeal Integrity Among African Americans”. It was certainly interesting!

[Anne Tigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It takes determination to see this novel through to the end, but, finally, I can recommend it for the way the story is told - in fits and starts, with references to rap and Black life and culture, unsure where we are -- is it Atlanta? Louisiana? And, come again with the coffee angle! There is a palpable anxious thread that runs through it like the necessary snakes, and makes it an authentic tale, desperate and intense. Now that I have finished the read, I need to follow up and see what Stephen Kearse is up to next.