An occupational therapist and single mom in Mesa Vista, CO, Amy used to enjoy her service on her son’s school board. But once administrative business was thrown over by masking and vaccination policies, Amy has become the target of increasing public vitriol. Little does she know that she’s the subject of a deliberate terror campaign by petty political extremists hoping to oust her at any cost.
J.T. Tierney’s EXTREME MALICE derives intense interest from its highly topical premise and the unfortunate verisimilitude of its story. The text isn’t going to convince anyone of its underlying political views—which it wears unapologetically on its sleeve—but one hopes that it will strike a chord with anyone who appreciates that violence and terror are unacceptable tactics in the open debate of a free and democratic society. EXTREME MALICE does an excellent job of portraying the emotional realities of the people tied up in these situations. On one hand, there are well-meaning public servants (who themselves run the gamut from classical conservatives to radical progressives) baffled by outlandish misinformation about race, gender, and science that has nothing to do with their role as a small-town school board. On the other, bitter radicals are motivated by distinct (and sometimes competing) beliefs about government, science, and race—only agreeing on an emotional sense that they deserve something that they’re not getting. These explorations are meaningfully balanced by the grounded, personal, physical journey of Amy’s father Tom. Tom’s illness (post-polio syndrome, a degenerative illness) has shades of both normal aging and the effects of long COVID—reminding the reader of the tenuousness of one’s well-being that underlies political decision-making about health.
EXTREME MALICE unfolds this story with strong, effective prose. A down-and-out part of town sports “houses […] scattered like dice thrown by a careless hand.” One character quips of the nearby strip mall, “If Dante had designed a modern circle of hell, it would look like this.” Former-cop Jack gets a few folksy one-liners in, too (like “Sometimes paranoia is just good sense wearing a cheap suit”). Although the prose style is solid and readable, the story might profit from more differentiation between its several narrators and characters; Amy’s 12-year-old son Matt, for instance, doesn’t noticeably read like a 12-year-old. In the second half of the text, one or two typos creep in as well (a few misplaced or missing pieces of punctuation, especially). Overall, however, these issues don’t detract from the vision or successful storytelling.
Again, EXTREME MALICE is open about its political sympathies, and a reader can decide how to judge that fact. But there’s no arguing with the text’s clear-eyed understanding of everyday people elevated, for good or ill, by the expression of outright hatred in political discourse.
J.T. Tierney’s EXTREME MALICE paints a chilling, ripped-from-the-headlines portrait of political violence in small-town America.
~Dan Accardi for IndieReader