The New Naturals

by Gabriel Bump

From the Ernest J. Gaines Award-winning author of Everywhere You Don't Belong, a touching, timely novel about an attempt to found an underground utopia and the interwoven stories of those drawn to it.

An abandoned restaurant on a hill off the highway in Western Massachusetts doesn't look like much. But to Rio, a young Black woman bereft after the loss of her newborn child, this hill becomes more than a safe haven—it becomes a place to start over. She convinces her husband to help her construct a society underground, somewhere safe, somewhere everyone can feel loved, wanted, and accepted, where the children learn actual history, where everyone has an equal shot.

She locates a Benefactor and soon their utopia begins to take shape. Two unhoused men hear about it and immediately begin their journey by bus from Chicago to get there. A young and disillusioned journalist stumbles upon it and wants in. And a former soccer player, having lost his footing in society, is persuaded to check it out too. But no matter how much these people all yearn for meaning and a sanctuary from the existential dread of life above the surface, what happens if this new society can't actually work? What then? 

From one of the most exciting new literary voices out there, The New Naturals is fresh and deeply perceptive, capturing the absurdity of life in the 21st century. In this remarkable feat of imagination, Bump shows us that, ultimately, it is our love for and connection to each other that will save us.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Mystery, Dystopia, Audiobook, Race

304 pages, Hardcover

First published November 14, 2023

About the author

Gabriel Bump is from South Shore, Chicago. He received his MFA in Fiction from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Gabriel’s first two novels—Everywhere You Don’t Belong and The New Naturals—are forthcoming from Algonquin Books.

Reviews

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you want to read about people building a utopian society underground, that's not really what this is...

To set proper expectations - 85% of the story tells why each character wants to join the underground society. (Spoiler alert, they are unhappy, suffered great loss, searching for connection, feel lost, etc..) 5% details the physical journey each person takes to find the society. The final 10% discusses how the society is set up and what it's actually like to live there.

Also important to know - it's told in a very stream of consciousness way. You're often in each person's head jumping around within loosely connected thoughts. It doesn't always make sense. There's not much plot or action. It's sad, and in my opinion, not particularly hopeful. Some characters were just way too spoiled and/or angsty to really inspire my empathy so I spent a lot of my time annoyed. (Like, I think there's a billionaire who is bored of being rich)

I'm giving it three stars because it's not a bad story, or poorly written. It definitely tries to say things. I just wanted the focus to be on building and living within the society, and not how sad everyone was. I feel the synopsis could do a better job of setting the right expectations so that it makes it into the hands of people who are looking for this type of book.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I should've DNFd this book. It had a great premise and even a fairly strong start, but it got lost along the way. Characters were all looking for hope, but they were looking for it in the wrong place. I guess it reminds me a little of my own fantasy where I want to grab all the MAGA people and put them on their own deserted island, because ultimately, I believe that's what they want - a country of just people like them. But as in this book, my fantasy isn't all that thought out, has no long-term funding behind it, and isn't ready for unintended consequences.

Book wasn't all that well written. Characters lacked depth and were mostly made up of whiny people. I would not want to be in their underground society, so I'm not sure why I bothered to finish reading about it. And no, it was not lost on me that Amadou and Trayvon were likely named after Amadou Diallo and Trayvon Martin.

[Sidne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Excellent premise that didn’t deliver

[Chris Blocker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Bump's debut Everywhere You Don't Belong. It wasn't a perfect book, but it showed so much potential that when I saw the author's sophomore effort was on the way, I had to snag a copy.

The premise of a young Black couple starting an isolated utopian community really pulled me in. Like Everywhere You Don't Belong, The New Naturals highlights Bump's knack for language, clever turns of phrases tucked between melodic prose that consistently move the story forward. One of my favorite things about Bump's debut was the characters. Unfortunately, none of these characters stuck with me the way that Nugget, Paul, or Claude's grandmother did, but that's not to say that these characters are not also well-crafted. They just can't compare to their predecessors.

The New Naturals is a novel that seems to brush against something wonderful, but never really digs down into it. Perhaps this just comes with the satirical nature of the writing, but even the satire seems underdeveloped in this story. I feel like there's a nugget of brilliance here that doesn't quite develop. This is most evident, in my opinion, in all the various threads that are introduced and just seem to dangle loosely--entire storylines that just end, connections that aren't quite made.

Though I didn't love The New Naturals, I see some of that same potential I saw in Everywhere.... I'm hopeful that the next book will be the one that really brings all the magic together.

In my other review of Bump's work, I compared Everywhere You Don't Belong heavily to the writing of Adam Levin. I don't see that as much here, but now that I've read more Percival Everett, I'm beginning to see a comparison there. Now, it might be worth taking note that Levin provided a glowing piece of praise for Bump's debut, and Everett provided a blurb for The New Naturals. So I think it's evident to me, if not to everyone else reading this by now, that I'm apparently a terribly lazy reviewer who cannot think for himself. So take this review for what it's worth.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for feedback.

[Patricia · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF - the premise was intriguing but never felt engaged with or invested in the characters.

[Priya · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was one of those strange books that you keep reading despite feeling that the characters and plot are meandering because you have an interest in knowing where they all end up!
Rio is a young Black woman who, after a personal tragedy, decides that the regular world isn't for her and she needs to make a utopian one for herself, her husband Gibraltar, and others who want to move in too. She envisages it deep below the surface of the earth and locates a mountain beneath which it can be housed. She even finds a benefactor with too much money and a need for new projects to spend it on. The world of her imagination begins to take shape but can she and the others sustain it?

Other than Rio and Gibraltar, there are several other people with reasons to be weary of the world, who would make great candidates for Rio's utopia. These include Sojourner, a disillusioned journalist, Bounce, who becomes popular for the worst reason ever and cannot handle it and two homeless men.

Most of the story is about the other characters making their way to the mountain and its promised sanctuary.
Their journey getting there is filled with their thoughts,often random, about all their shattered dreams and past disappointments in a stream of consciousness way.There is actually very little about the utopian world itself and how it will sustain the hopes of all these people. Some of them are pretty bizarre to be honest. Imagine having an existential crisis because you are a billionaire with too much money!

My interpretation of the book is that it represents the search for an ideal world that all humans want to embark on. Some actually do and manage to set it up but can't hold on. It's also cyclical because others learn from the ones before and try again. Some of us manage to find a new normal in the midst of the chaos we are trying to escape.

There were some takeaways like the above in the midst of all the wierd ideas in this book about humans yearning to escape their present for a perfect but unknown future. I wish it had delved more into the mechanics of being these new naturals that the title and the premise seemed to suggest but I kind of liked what I read as well.

[Bill Silva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intriguing premise, sympathetic characters, and some appealing writing…but the story is insufficiently developed and the novel feels incomplete.

[Jasey Roberts · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was a bit disappointed by this. This has a really good first chapter, that is then used as a framing device to sucker the reader into reading a collection of detached short stories, none of which interested me very much. Bump’s sentences, for the most part, are very on point and he does some really remarkable stuf , but the structure here betrayed my trust in a big way.

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just started reading it and it looks very promising! Holds my attention and the main character Rio draws you in and the cast of characters blend perfectly. If I can give a review with several chapters in…I’ll definitely read the rest of this novel with great anticipation!! Gabriel Bump…well done!

[Chispita Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 is this speculative fiction? too highbrow for me. i didnt like the style at all, especially when hearing the audiobook and the humans talk like: eat eat eat eat, me me me, now now now. wtf? is this a metaphor for the degradation of our mental capacities in the future when the world falls apart? i wanted more apocalypse and less quiet reflection (of which there didnt feel like much reflection)

[Shai Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sorry maybe it's just me but????? This entire premise was just fairly mid and I was not a fan of the writing. But maybe that's just me!

[Tracey · Rating 2 out of 5]

So many complex characters to keep track of.. it got tedious.

[Christina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was an early reader of Gabriel Bump’s debut novel, “Everywhere You Don't Belong,” and was sucked into his prose from the very beginning. I jumped at the chance to read his sophomore novel, “The New Naturals,” and was excited about this fascinating story about a utopian society.

Rio and Gibraltar are looking to start a new society where everyone is welcome, feel loved, and accepted. After a traumatic event changes their lives, Rio wants a place to start over. A benefactor is located and the utopian society starts to take shape. You meet a host of people and their stories of why they want to join this society, and begin the journey into understanding if people can actually have and live in this society.

As scintillating as this all sounds, this story did not grasp me as I expected. Though the writing is full of colorful language and brilliant phrases nestled between pleasing-to-the-ear prose that consistently moves the story forward, the story fell flat for me. The story failed to engage me as a reader, nor did I feel invested in the lives of any of the characters. There were so many POVs that I got lost, and it became tedious to keep up.

I feel that I’m a well-read reader who keeps an open mind about various literary nuanced books, but this one just didn’t grasp me at all, and it made me feel sad that I could not engage and enjoy this book as I anticipated. I believe Bump is a very brilliant writer, and has a sharp sense of humor that I may not have fully appreciated in this novel.

I was more intrigued with the building of a new society, which did not take place in the beginning, and it was glossed over a lot towards the end. I initially thought the book was about building the new society, which is most of the premise of the book, but it was the least discussed in this book. The book more so talked about why each character wanted to join the underground society, instead of actually living in the society that is planned. I understand that the story isn’t meant to be realistic, as it’s more of a critique of today’s society, identifying its flaws and failures. The author, I believe, wants us all to understand that community is important and can be a cure to our current conditioning and overall despair; however, the book is full of negativity, that doesn’t mesh well with the premise of having a “utopian” society. To be quite honest, I think he’s saying there is no such thing as a Utopian society, as the book never fully delves in on what it would take to create a society, and where people could find the things they are actually looking for, such as purpose, belonging, love, and community… but I could be wrong in this thinking.

Many topics come to the front in this book:
- Black mental health
- Idealism
- Utopian society
- Racism
- Community


Thank you to the publisher, Algonquin Books and to the author, Gabriel Bump for this book in exchange for a honest and fair review.

[Carter Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really really liked this—Gabriel is a phenomenal writer with a beautiful perspective on life and all of its intricacies.

Where this book SORT of lost me was in the scope of it all—to be honest, I think it was a little too ambitious for the page count. Between the fallout of the community and the Bounce/Sojourner of it all, the ending felt a bit rushed.

Great read overall, though. Would recommend.

[Tiffany Farfan · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Stopped halfway through. I really struggled with this one and I’m sad because I really wanted to like it. The first chapter was amazing and the premise intriguing. However, the constant POV switching didn’t work for me this time. I was struggling to connect with the characters. I was more intrigued with the building of a new society and it was glossed over a lot. The message of the author is clear from the beginning so I don’t feel like I’m walking away without having taken the lesson in.

I’m sure I’ll come back to it one day for a reading challenge prompt and we will see if maybe then I enjoy it.

[Nic · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m not literary enough to appreciate this drivel

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this! It felt more like connecting short stories than a novel, but not in a bad way. It also included a lot of monologues/conversations that tried to parse through *all this*, which I love.

[Oscreads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gabriel Bump is a promising writer. I’m excited to see what else they write. This was excellent.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life is an endless series of blurred lines

[luke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very hopeless, not really sure what the whole ‘point’ was. America sucks and we’re all doomed, but don’t start a cult, I guess? I didn’t hate the writing style itself, though. Just read Birnam Wood.

[Jonah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐

[Nate Hawthorne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The concept was sound, but it didn’t go the direction I was expecting. There was a vision there, I just didn’t grasp it. Lots of characters, which is not the best for me.

[Shari Ulman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, sparse poetic imagery. The author captured the crash of idealism meeting the reality of human nature.

[Kayla DeToma · Rating 5 out of 5]

The people hating on this book just don’t get it! This was a breath of fresh air for me and I would recommend it especially if you’re into eccentric sentence structures and feeling emotions.

[Mike Reiff · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fantastic concept from the outset that’s lost amidst a meandering, wandering plot and dialogue that doesn’t pop and crackle like it’s intended to.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Other than the fact that the book barely brushes on the premise of an underground society, I honestly thought this book was an amazing exploration of mental health and being black in America. I wouldn’t be surprised if this book appears on college syllabus in the future. It’s that kind of smart.

[Ricki Brodie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can you build a utopia where everyone is welcome and can live without prejudice and discrimination and find peace and hope? Gibraltar and Rio, college professors, have lost their child. In her despair, post partum depression, Rio sees a mountain and decides she wants to create an underground oasis where people can unite in their hope for a society where people are equal and all can belong. She spreads the word. People dismiss her idea except for a Benefactor who wants her billions to do some good. She forms a Board and allows Rio to build her vision.

We meet Ethling who seems to have a “normal” life with a wife and kids until he brings home kittens to his allergic kids. She leaves and the we find him as a derelict and drunk living under an underpass with his new best friend, also a drunk with emotional problems. They hear about the sanctuary and decide to join a group headed to Massachusetts.

The author introduces us to Sojourner, a disillusioned journalist and essayist, who cannot find her way. She is sad, depressed and fed up with life. Drinking her troubles away she meets Bounce, a bi-polar ex-soccer player who also is carrying a lifetime of regrets. With minimal financial means they see no hope.

While this book excellently explores life’s struggles, mental illness and a hope for a better world, it drops the ball in other areas. The only characters fleshed out are broken in some way. While there may be people there without such crushing issues, you have to wonder, is this a place for broken people or all people? Additionally, two of the characters never meet the rest. Their story is well written and thought provoking. They are searching for utopia but like the rest of us they never succeed. People strive to feel a sense of belonging. Utopia, as a character, felt neglected. I guess I wanted more.

Thank you NetGalley and Algonquin Press for this ARC.

[Lauren O · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointed beyond belief, beyond words.

[Kenny Hernandez · Rating 3 out of 5]

(minor spoilers) My reading experience of this novel went through a few different stages. At first, I fell in love with this book, its premise, and its characters. The prose immediately struck me, the wonderful omniscient voice that swaps between perspectives at the paragraph level, the wonderfully constant use of semicolons (which I totally advocate for as a writer), and the wonderful tool of observation carrying emotional weight, and never spelling things out for the audience. The first “part” of this novel completely captured me, and I was elated to see how that would lead into the premise of this utopian world that’s created early on. With “part 2” onwards, we get introduced to a many different protagonists that we follow for the rest of the novel. As opposed to Rio and Gibraltar (the first two protagonists), Sojourner feels different at first, even in the prose. While her sections felt like they had less purpose, I trusted this book based on its beginning, so I figured she would be one of the people to head to the utopia. Eventually, as we get to more characters, they all start to follow a similar style of prose to Sojourner, which makes them all blend with one another, especially as the omniscient voice delivers the perspectives from our protagonists, their relationship partners, siblings, random bystanders, etc. Eventually, the repetition of each character saying exactly what they think (i.e. Get up, Sojourner thought. “Get up,” Sojourner said) gets a bit tiring. Also, the use of “said” attached to each dialogue tag after each character speaks gets to be a chore to read. If it was a stylistic choice (which I assume it is, I give credit to Gabriel to be intentional in his writing style), it is used too often between every character to be effective by the end of the book. The middle of this book was quite a drag for me, and there was little hint towards what was to come of each character for me to be all too invested in their lives. The book promises this utopia that is set up early in the book, and for those wishing to get a good look at this society created in a contemporary America, you will be disappointed. The utopia aspect is very little of this book, and the characters that we follow only get to interact with our first protagonists Rio and Gibraltar with less than 100 pages left. While it may seem like a smart decision to keep our characters interacting with the real world so that we can get a good look at who would reasonably come to this world, it leaves much missed potential. This hits even more as this book sets up Rio and Gibraltar’s inciting incident that made Rio want to create the utopia in a wonderful 25 page chapter. Gabriel is capable of giving us an in-depth look at someone’s lives in a concise manner to get where we want to be (narratively-speaking), and that ability largely disappears when it comes to our other POV characters. I want to reiterate my love for that beginning, and I also want to express that the ending, when some of our new POV characters get to interact with Rio and Gibraltar in the society, were some of my favorite points in the book, and I put the book down feeling very satisfied. While all of the vignettes that the middle of the book gives to us as the readers feel very illuminating, the actual reading process gets very tiresome, and, by design, the characters have no idea where they are heading, but the narrative voice seems to not give us readers any hints. It falls into the pothole of literary fiction that, in its attempts to be elevated, instead alienates its reader. The conversation on the inherent togetherness that humans desire, even despite their inability to fit comfortably into society, is a wonderfully illustrated in this book. The depictions of romance, especially in dynamics in which the woman is largely the main decision-maker in each relationship in this book, were really honest. They’re tragic romances, but in the way that all love doesn’t always line up with what we want. Despite all of that, I love to hear the agency of those involved in relationships in this book, whether someone choosing to leave a relationship or choose to continue to love someone regardless. The internal voices of our protagonists are strong; one of my favorite aspects of this book that’s a bit more understated was the fact that many of the characters in this book are intelligent, with college educations and even being professors. All the same, this does not lessen their struggles at all. I love media with smart people, because I believe that interesting conflict does not need to come from incompetence on the part of the characters. Each character in this book has strong conviction in some way, and it’s entertaining to see them fight for what they want and to still face hardship, because that’s what life can bring. Rio and Gibraltar end up hurt largely because of the incompetence of others, and this book captures that powerless that comes with the belief that you’re doing everything right and to still have life spit in your face. It’s just the way life is sometimes (especially for people of color), and it is a very large feat for this book to be able to capture that feeling. It’s a large reason of why this book’s introduction works so well, because we see smart people frustrated with their inability to work with the society that they live in, and to feel othered because of that inability to fit in. We see people who are spiritual, who listen to the intuitions and premonitions of their heads, and how they’re trying to work with those aspects of themselves in a world that doesn’t want to work with them. The POV characters eventually lead to two endings; the book never really takes a side on whether this pursuit of the utopia was truly wrong or not. We can see the pain it created, but the book also spends much of its time constructing the people that this new promise is for. Our POV characters always find some kind of connection in their worlds, someone who understands them, and none of them let go of those people no matter where they end up. The merits of this book are strong, and I’m really interested to see what Gabriel Bump does next. But, the actual process of reading, which is a big part of the overall experience of a book, was too grating to give this book a higher score, which is disappointing.

[Mordechai Lipman · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a bad book. It’s poorly written, in short terse sentences and sometimes mere phrases. The characters all suffer from mental illness and are otherwise indistinguishable from each other. The “utopia” they seek is not achieved. Nothing memorable here except to avoid this author in the future.