BOOK REVIEW: ‘Unity’ by John Leahy

“The connection that resulted in the crippling of the world thirty four years later was forged at a late night sing-along around a fire on Westward Beach in Malibu.”

Thus begins John Leahy’s book, Unity. The novel follows the life of Jonah Gates, a young, withdrawn boy who gains an interest in viruses when his older brother dies of rabies; and eventually grows up to be a leading virologist in the world. However, Jonah has a dark obsession with women that only grows more dangerous and may eventually trigger the end of the world itself.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this novel is the construction of Jonah Gates; essentially a character who seems totally devoid of any emotional attachments and oftentimes seems incapable of understanding how emotions typically work for people. Some might be inclined to label Jonah as a psychopath. Certainly, the character shows many psychopathic tendencies but what makes the character fascinating is that he doesn’t easily fit into the mould of a “psychopath.” He might seem devoid of emotions when his brother’s death via rabies only leaves him with a new-found fascination for viruses, but at the same time, the character seems to be driven by a deep-seated hatred for his runaway mother. Jonah Gates seems like a simple character to begin with; described as “empty” from the get-go, even by his parents, but the character is multi-faceted and full of surprises as the novel develops.

Though the novel is relatively slow-paced, this works in its favour. The second part of the book, cleverly titled, “love expressed” follows the spread of the deadly virus that Jonah has set loose on the world. It depicts the slow and steady unravelling of the entire world, as Jonah watches from the sidelines. Leahy does a fantastic job of portraying Jonah’s detachedness from the madness that he, himself has created. He watches footage of his destruction on the news with utter apathy or even amusement at the growing illness that leaves people in an animal-like state.

Jonah even declares himself “God,” the one who has decided that the end of the world would come and had acted on it. In a scene where Jonah travels from Atlanta to California; Leahy literally places Jonah as the all-seeing eye over the world: “A little over an hour later they were in a plane headed west. As they climbed higher in the sky Jonah looked behind him at Atlanta preceding in the distance. Fires burned at random points in the city. A particularly large inferno blazed close to the tall building at its center, a thick black plume of smoke rising from the orange ball. Jonah faced forward again and closed his eyes. He fell asleep and didn’t wake up until they touched down in California.”

As interesting as Jonah’s character and the chaotic destruction of the world were, I was left disappointed by the ending of the book, which almost felt clichéd. As I was quite invested in the construction of Jonah Gates as a character, I thought the ending did not do him justice. However, as a book that was filled to the brim with the macabre, the hopefulness of the end was refreshing.