[Book Review] Tinfoil Butterfly (2019)

In Rachel Eve Moulton's novel Tinfoil Butterfly, Emma is on a mission to see the Badlands, a mountainous stretch of rocky terrain in South Dakota in the U.S. Her beloved stepbrother Ray had often dreamt of running away to the Badlands, and now Emma is heading straight for them. Along the way, she must contend with both murderous strangers and the ghosts of her own past. 

At the beginning of the story, Emma is hitching a ride with a sleazy man who specialises in making lewd comments. During this ride, it's revealed that Emma is not an independent woman on a fun trip, but a scared young woman on the run. The lecherous driver attempts to assault Emma, and she fights him off, leaving him bleeding by the side of the road as she steals his van. 

She promptly runs out of gas in a ghost town in the Black Hills, yet another rocky area of South Dakota. While taking refuge in an abandoned diner, Emma runs into a small child named Earl: "He's young. Maybe seven or eight. A silver mask obscures his face. It looks as if it's made of tinfoil, crumpled and shaped into wings. His eyes, nose, and lips peek through. The mask is beautiful." The unlikely duo teams up; it's clear they need to escape the tiny town, and they're both running from something. But there are insidious obstacles in their way.

Emma and Earl oscillate between being sympathetic characters and being slightly suspicious. After Emma notices Earl's fascination with bugs, he tells her, "I love all creatures." Then he shifts gears and reveals, "Every time I meet a new person, I try to decide how long they'll live if I pick them apart… It's fun to figure out which parts to take off first." Is he a precocious young boy? Or is he hiding something?

Emma's past comes into focus as the novel progresses. She's mourning the loss of her stepbrother Ray, and the guilt she feels over his mysterious death hangs heavy over Tinfoil Butterfly. "I'm not good for other people," she claims. It's hard to believe her when she has been caring for Earl, a lost little boy. Just as Earl needs a motherly figure to tend to him, Emma needs someone to take care of, especially in the wake of Ray's death; it's clear she feels responsible for his demise, and perhaps protecting Earl can lessen her guilt and help her heal. 

Both Emma and Earl must accept the truth about their pasts before they can move forward. The horror in Tinfoil Butterfly comes from the trauma they have both endured during their short lives. They were both square pegs in round holes growing up, and they've both lost the person who made them feel like they fit in – in Emma's case, Ray; in Earl's case, his mother. As they depend on another one to fight against the forces preventing them from leaving the Black Hills, they both get a second chance to be part of a family. 

The layers of Earl and Emma's trauma are peeled back gradually throughout the story; as they deal with defeating the real-life monsters in their way, they must also contend with the pain they're endured and the people who have hurt them (as well as the people whom they've hurt). As horror films and novels remind us, you can't outrun evil – and you can't outrun trauma. At some point, you'll have to stop where you are and face whatever demons are after you. 

"These hills are always shifting. Swallowing things up and then growing them anew. Life is cyclical," Earl sagely tells Emma, citing his beloved mother. Perhaps there's hope for Emma and Earl once they're away from the anguish and abuse they've suffered in the past. Maybe they'll even get a chance at a new life if they can escape the Badlands.

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