Book Review: Burn What Will Burn

I can’t change death, and as a matter of fact, the dead don’t need me. That’s the operating principle — one might think of it as passive nihilism — of the central character in CB McKenzie’s 2016 novel, Burn What Will Burn. I don’t typically remark upon titles, but what a great title that is for a book. McKenzie’s central character is Bob Reynolds, who is likely suffering from OCD (he repeatedly washes his hands, and counts everything) and is completely “burned away,” as it were, by the trauma of his past. That being the death of his parents, his wife, and his unborn child. What’s left is an OCD alcoholic, who still sometimes writes poems on napkins and gives out financial advice to other barflies, and is pining after a drug-addled woman who reminds him of his drug-addled wife, who then stumbles upon a body in a creek in a small Arkansas town in 1984.

Given this context, I feel like Reynolds’ reaction to stumbling upon a dead body is right within character. He tries to wish it away at first. He takes his time processing every little detail about the body and the environment in which it was found. He muses about how the body came to be there and came to be … well, dead. And then, he thoroughly cleans himself up at his house, and then because he doesn’t have a telephone, he heads to a local store where he encounters a young man and “friend,” Malcolm, who is intellectually challenged and he sort of sidetracks Reynolds’ business of calling the police (and that whole business takes effort because 9-1-1- isn’t answering). Weirdly, when Reynolds accompanies the Sheriff back to the creek, the body is gone (more on that in a moment).

Probably the weirdest quirk about this whole town — not even the fact of how the Locals (how its stylized) look at Reynolds, who does live there, as an outsider with inheritance money — is that everyone talks to everyone by repeatedly mentioning their name. So, for example, when someone is talking to Bob, they end every sentence with “Bob.” I don’t know if that was an intentional quirk, and I’m not sure what it would even mean, but it was noticeable! Maybe it just plays to how weird the townsfolk in this Arkansas town the book is set in are.

As I understand it, the woman Bob was pining after, Tammy Fay Smith, got tired of the dead man so ensured he went from a living man to a dead man with the help of a different mentally challenged man. They then killed Malcolm’s drug-running, on-the-lam father for witnessing it, and then the Sheriff’s aged, mentally ill father stumbled across the body and cut its head off (hence its disappearance). Later, Bob kills the Sheriff’s father in self-defense, and Tammy Fay Smith’s mentally challenged conspirator rapes and kills her. It’s a bit of a mess, and what will burn will burn.

McKenzie’s book, admittedly, isn’t going to end up near my favorites of the year so far, but because of the strong title, the intriguing premise, and the attempt at Daniel Woodrell-like gothic country noir prose (“attempt” is not a slight, that’s a tall task!), I’m left pondering the book, all the same. As I mentioned, I think McKenzie is asking us, through Reynolds, who we are and what our place in the world is after grief has burned what will burn. And, I think, Reynolds begrudgingly might admit that the dead do indeed demand something of us, and that’s kind of his whole problem! He’s trying to avoid the demand until he no longer can.