Beast by Watt Key

Beast: Face-to-Face with the Florida Bigfoot
By Watt Key
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020

13-year-old Adam Parks is in the backseat at night as his parents are driving along the road north of Florida’s Suwanee National Wildlife Refuge when an accident happens: later, the the hospital with his parents missing, all Adam can remember is that there was a thing in the road - tall, broad, hair, but definitely not a bear. The state trooper who questions him presses the point, but Adam is certain: what he saw was not a bear. 

The brief notice that appears in the paper hints that the accident was caused by an encounter with a “Sasquatch-like creature,” and it’s the first time Adam has heard the word. When he does some online research, he finds a whole teeming world of encounters and rumors. “Despite all the sightings, there is no convincing proof it really exists,” he learns. “It’s a cryptid: an animal whose existence has never been substantiated. Witnesses have the footprints and the blurry videos and pictures, but that’s all.” 

With his parents still missing and his dreams haunted by the shadowy figure he saw that night, Adam isn’t long out of the hospital (and in his uncle’s custody) before he’s searching for answers and quickly finding out more about this mysterious being that may be a long-time natural resident of Florida. One eye witness is still bitter:

“I saw it sitting out there in my pasture with its legs crossed. Leaning over one of my cows it had ripped apart. It looked up at me, and its eyes were black as caves. It had blood dripping from its mouth. Had teeth like a person. Had a face like a person. Like a caveman or something, but it was covered in hair and must have been ten feet tall. It wasn’t scared of me at all.”

“What was it?”

“An abomination. Something that’s been around a lot longer than us. Inbred and crossbred into all different kinds of things. Part ape, part human, maybe part other stuff.”

Naturally, Adam eventually decides to confront the whole subject directly and trek along the Suwanee and into the depths of the swamp in search of answers. Watt Key has written a string of adventure books for young boys, books that are refreshingly intelligent and complex, and Beast is a fine addition to that run: Florida skunk-ape fans expecting condescension will be pleasantly surprised by its absence, and wary parents worrying that Adam will be a lunkheaded skateboarder will likewise be pleasantly surprised. And as thrilling as Adam’s adventures in the swamp are, the book’s climax is even more so. 

—Steve Donoghue is a founding editor of Open Letters Monthly. His book criticism has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The American Conservative. He writes regularly for The National, The Vineyard Gazette, and The Christian Science Monitor. His website is http://www.stevedonoghue.com.