Old King by Maxim Loskutoff (W.W. Norton and Company)

Jim Motavalli

Lincoln, Montana is a real place, and Ted Kaczynski is, of course, a real person. In 1996, the “Unabomber” was arrested after a more than decade-long manhunt at his cabin in Lincoln. According to Wikipedia, it was the biggest thing to hit this town, known for logging and trapping, since Meriwether Lewis passed through on his way back to St. Louis in 1806.

Maxim Loskutoff. (W.W. Norton photo)

Maxim Loskutoff’s novel is not principally about Kaczynski, though the story is told from various viewpoints and the seriously troubled bomber is one of them. Upfront is the recently divorced Duane Oshun, first seen in Salt Lake City stealing a microwave from his ex-wife’s house. It’s 1976, and Oshun wants to get as far from his cheating spouse as possible. Lincoln fits the bill, even though he has to leave behind his beloved son, Hudson.

Oshun arrives in Montana with hardly anything, and lives in his little truck as he begins to eke out a bare existence. He meets Jackie, a townie waitress, too, and over the years (the book tends to skip ahead a lot) finally builds a snug cabin. With Jackie and Hudson there in the summers, Oshun starts to feel his life is at last coming together. But he doesn’t know that bicycle-riding Ted, who lives up the road, is a nihilistic killer.

The book plays out as a tragedy, told in magisterial prose. Loskutoff, who lives in western Montana, has a real feel for the land and the people who inhabit it, too. He’s good on the animals, too, wolves and grizzly bears among them. Jackie’s ex-husband is a Forest Ranger who’s on a collision course with the local poachers. There are very sad consequences for him, too; nobody in this book emerges unscathed.

At this point we begin to lose Oshun as a character, and he never really does come fully in focus. After an enormous loss, he just fades away. Jackie is also peripheral, and about Hudson we learn little beyond his love of off-road motorcycles. We want to know more. The fast-forwards are a bit jarring, too.

But the author fully captures not only Kaczynski and his incredible lack of human empathy, and the dogged Postal Inspector who goes after him. Loskutoff quotes liberally from Kaczynski’s manifesto, which the Washington Post ran to get him to stop killing people. His philosophy is senseless, but of course it is. Did you ever read a treatise (or court testimony) from one of these fools that wasn’t described as “disjoined” and “rambling”?

Even today, the man, who hanged himself in his cell last year, has followers. “Reject Modernity, Embrace Ted Kaczynski” is a track you can buy on Bandcamp for $1. Save your money. Buy Loskutoff’s novel instead. It’s darned good.