Beta Vulgaris by Margie Sarsfield follows a young woman who signs up to work on a sugar beet farm in Minnesota. Elise is troubled, self-deprecating, and short on cash – this summer job is going to be her ticket out of debt, and a desperately needed distraction. When people begin to go missing on the farm, Elise’s anxieties spiral out of control – and she appears to be the only one who can hear that the beets have starting talking.
This book is a perfectly executed contemporary thriller, featuring a deeply unsettling narrator and the very unique – and strangely terrifying – setting of a beet farm. Beta Vulgaris delves into themes of mental health, class, wealth and paranoia, accompanied by a dark and clever sense of humor throughout. While this is, at its core, a horror story, the book is largely focused on the characters and their strained relationships. The sugar beet harvest builds undeniable tension between Elise and her boyfriend, Tom; this only gets worse as Elise begins to build credit card debt, and Tom begins getting a little too close to one of their coworkers. It’s hard to know how much of what Elise is seeing is in her own head, and how much is a genuine threat hidden amongst the beet piles and the workers’ campsite.
Elise is a very believable and flawed protagonist; the reader is exposed to her every confession, delusion and hope. Her anxieties manifest themselves so strongly, they almost exist as their own character. The way that her eating disorder is depicted is incredibly realistic and raw, and many of her struggles and thoughts are ones that readers will resonate with. Sarsfield’s portrayal of depression and anxiety is very skillful. It can be exhausting keeping up with narration as overbearing as Elise’s, but this is a struggle that will vary from reader to reader. It’s easy to feel Elise’s overwhelming isolation and the effects of her past trauma, and her unique voice makes Beta Vulgaris an incomparable story.
There’s a very unfocused, dreamlike filter over Elise’s perspective, which calls into question how much the reader can trust her narration. Characters who seem to be friends are suddenly cast in a villainous light, and people drop in and out of the story as though phasing out of existence. There are so many strange elements at play on the beet farm; Elise develops a mysterious rash, the disappearances of her coworkers continue to grow, and her credit card company just won’t stop calling. The madness that begins to grip the beet farm feels almost contagious as the story progressively warps and loops back on itself.
Fans of “weird girl literature” and works by Ottessa Moshfegh and Eliza Clark will love what Beta Vulgaris has to offer. This is psychological horror at its finest; a surreal and eerie reading experience, with an incredibly complex and self-destructive protagonist. Try to devour this book before it – and the beet farm – devour you.
A young woman’s seasonal job working a sugar beet harvest takes a surreal turn in this surprising and vivid debut.
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