Natalie's idol is Dr. Thomas F. Carver whom she nicknames, "Thomas Fucking Carver". Carver is a renowned paleontologist who has made dinosaur discoveries including a Centesaurus which he discovered in Utah. Natalie hoped Carver would talk about the legal trouble the Central Texas Mammoth Site has encountered in his latest podcast on Carved in Bone. However no mention is made of the dispute between the "family of the property's former owner" and the site over the first fossils recovered on the land that is now the Central Texas Mammoth site. Instead the podcast is about Carver and his team working to protect a newly discovered Apatosaurus skeleton from a flash flood and waiting out the storm in nearby trees.
At the airport in Austin, Texas, Natalie is met by Eli Washington, a senior intern. She also meets two other student interns, a blond girl named Quinn who later reveals that she is Dr. Carver's daughter, and a handsome, tall boy named Chase. Natalie and Quinn are rooming with another senior intern, Mellie McCormick who happens to share Natalie's interests in crafting and thrifting. At the welcome meeting, Natalie and the other interns meet Dr. Helen Lauren, assistant director at the Central Texas Mammoth Site, who oversees the intern program. She takes them on a campus tour and dinner at the cafeteria. The next day they meet the site's director, Dr. Vincent Gallagher, an expert in paleontological taphonomy. During their introduction to the site, Natalie realizes that Quinn has an advantage over her because as Dr. Carver's daughter, she is already known to the site staff. So she competes with Quinn, attempting to impress Dr. Gallagher and be acknowledged.On a tour led by Cody, a high school senior, Natalie and the other interns see the in situ bone bed, the remains of a single nursery herd that likely died around forty-thousand years ago as a result of a sudden flood. Natalie interrupts the tour to correct a father and son's misconceptions about the site. This makes Cody angry and he tells her never to do that again. When they reconnect with Dr. Lauren, Natalie realizes that her choice of clothing and footwear is not reasonable for walking on the forest trails. But she does have an eye for finding things, spotting a bone in the river bed, that turns out to be from a pork chop.
Natalie's crush on Chase continues to blossom when they spend time together that night talking about their lives and their mutual interest in fossils. The next day Natalie and the interns visit the Dr. Warren Roland lab, a warehouse-sized building that houses labs and fossils. Dr. Roland was in charge of the original dig at the Mammoth Site and he founded the paleo program at Austin State. Dr. Ted Glass is in charge of the bone prep lab, explaining that although there still are bones to dig up, the warehouse is full of fossils, many of which they don't know about and many needing preparation. Dr. Glass and Amy Seeker, a grad student train the interns on screen picking. Watching Quinn flirt with Chase, during the training session, makes Natalie jealous.
The interns begin to settle in learning various jobs; Natalie and Brendan work with Cody to learn the tour while Chase and Quinn train in the sandbox. Natalie quickly becomes adept at leading the tour, adding in her own paleo facts and is soon allowed to lead tours with Cody observing. One afternoon during break Cody overhears a conversation in Dr. Lauren's office. When the first bones were discovered, Dr. Roland and the landowner supposedly signed a contract which allowed the university to lease the land and keep any fossils found. However, now the family is claiming the contract never existed, that the fossils belong to them and they want financial compensation as well.
Natalie is thrilled to learn that her idol, Dr. Carver will be visiting the site to film segments, including the interns for his new show. During Carver's visit, Natalie is filmed while working in the sandbox and is even coached by Dr. Carver. A photograph of Natalie and Dr. Carver appears on his website but while it is wonderful for Natalie, his daughter Quinn is less than impressed. Quinn shows Natalie a text from her father critical of her work at the site, and shares that she has a strained relationship with her famous father.
After a week at the site, Natalie is recognized for her exemplary work leading tours and she, Brendan and Chase are cleared to work in the bone bed. That night, the interns are given time off and all including Natalie decide to meet at the amphitheater and drink beer Brendan has stolen from a fridge in the lab. While Cody limits himself to one beer, the rest drink until they are very drunk. Cody refuses to go along with Quinn's plan to walk to the site to dig. Eventually only Chase and Natalie attempt to walk to the site even though both are very intoxicated. They begin kissing passionately but Natalie becomes annoyed when Chase tries to take things further. At this point the two are discovered on the road by the senior interns, Eli and Mellie who drive them back to the residences. The next day Dr Lauren places both Chase and Natalie on probation. Natalie worries about the repercussions for Cody but fortunately he just gets a reprimand. At this time, Cody notices that Natalie looks different, because she hasn't done her makeup due to her hangover. He tells her she looks nice.
However Natalie is totally absorbed with Chase, holding hands with him and telling her best friend Charli back home that she thinks they might be a thing. But Natalie soon discovers that Chase is anything but sincere about their relationship. When she discovers Chase and Quinn making out in Natalie is devastated and runs to the bone storage room. Quinn finds her and tries to apologize, explaining that she acted the way she did because of her fractured relationship with her father and her inability to please him. While Natalie is listening, she suddenly notices that there is a labelled specimen from the Mammoth site on the storage shelf. Since all the specimens from the site are supposed to have been processed this is a shocking find. Natalie's discovery has huge implications for the site and its legal issues.
As Natalie deals with Chase's betrayal, and with the realization that her hero Dr. Carver is not the great guy she thought he was, she begins to shed some of the armour she's built up to protect herself. In an attempt to redeem herself, Natalie takes a risk that put her internship at risk and almost cost the life of the boy who turns out to be a true friend.
Discussion
Mammoth tackles the tricky subjects of body image and body shaming as well as self-esteem.Natalie Page is a plus-size teenager who has experienced bullying over her weight. In middle school she was known as "Fat Nat", a nickname given to her by a classmate. However, in high school, Natalie's Aunt Judy helped her forge her physical and emotional armor against body shaming. She taught Natalie to "be awesome", to be Awesome Natalie instead of Fat Nat. "It's the persona I put on each day, the tight shapers that bind me, the cute dresses, the flawless makeup. It's everything." Every minute of Natalie's day is focused on being awesome. She chooses her outfits for the day, spends time putting on makeup and restraining her naturally curly hair. But sometimes all of this isn't enough. As when she sits in her seat on the plane and notices her upper arm is partially in the middle seat. "All the armor in the world can't protect me from moments like this. Be awesome, I tell myself. I can't slip not. Not now."
Not only is Natalie focused on her own body but also on the bodies of those around her. Whenever she sees another woman, she automatically guesses that woman's weight, without even realizing she's doing this. "The number flashes in my head, illuminated like a digital display. Like the numbers on a scale. it's a game I play with myself; I can't meet a woman without guessing her weight. It always makes me feel a little guilty, but working for Aunt Judy and writing about fashion have made me almost too good at estimating things like weight and clothing size. The reaction is so automatic and objective that I can't seem to stop. Beside, when you're as aware of size as I've learned to be, when you're reminded of it everytime those great jeans don't fit or some anonymous idiot leaves a rude comment on your blog, you notice aspects of it everywhere."
To cope with her stress, Natalie snaps the hair elastic on her wrist. She constantly compares parts of her body, especially her thighs with those of others despite her Aunt Judy telling her she has "sturdy thighs" that will carry her far. Baguchinsky realistically portrays Natalie's constant war with food. "In the cafeteria, I settle on a soy cheeseburger on a whole wheat bun and a bag of crackers. At the end of the line, near the cashier, a pile of prepackaged desserts sings like a siren on treacherous rocks. I try not to look, but I'm hungry. And they have snickerdoodles -- my favorite. I take two and stare at them on my tray, anxiety blooming in my throat like bile."
Baguchinsky has crafted a very realistic heroine in Natalie Page. Natalie, a paleontology geek shows her passion for the fossil site, makes the typical poor decisions one expects of teenagers, such as getting drunk, working with a fossil when she's not trained on bone prep, and going out to prospect without permission. She's ambitious to the point of recklessness, endangering Cody's life. But she's also forgiving, salvaging her friendship with Quinn who betrayed her and recognizing the pain Quinn is suffering from the strained relationship with her famous father.
The main theme of the novel is that of a young woman who has created this persona to fit in with societal expectations of beauty and health. In the process, she's lost who she is. As a young girl, Natalie experienced body shaming from classmates such as Fred Parkmore. Baguchinsky shows her readers how this has affected Natalie; she has low self esteem and in order to protect herself has devised her "armor" literally with a shaper that she puts on each day to mold her body into the approved shape, even though she can't take a full breath while wearing it and figuratively through the mantra of "be awesome". However, as her internship progresses, Natalie begins to slowly shed that armor. First it's her dresses styled to her plus-sized figure, then it's her shoes which are inappropriate for working in the bone bed and walking on the trails. Then after the night drinking, a hung-over Natalie dispenses with the makeup, the foundation and eyeliner and lipstick and even her shaper. Cody notices immediately that she looks different, telling Natalie, "You look nice. Softer. That's all." But Natalie's not ready yet to drop her armor and she changes "softer into vulnerable. Unprotected. Fat." Natalie can't accept Cody's compliment and does her makeup.
But it is only after Cody almost loses his life while they are attempting to protect a newly discovered fossil during a severe storm that Natalie finally decides to shed her armor. She recognizes that her armor makes her look invulnerable, which is not really true. When she goes to meet the people who will decide her fate after so many mistakes and poor choices, she doesn't wear her shaper, does her makeup only lightly and pulls her frizzy hair back in a ponytail. Natalie decides to stands up for herself, telling the panel about her love for paleontology and expressing regret over her poor decisions. She also stands up to her Dr. Carver, whom she no longer idolizes.
After she is expelled from the internship program, in the bathroom Natalie remembers why she began using makeup. "...I liked what I saw in the mirror - but I felt like I was looking at someone else. It was a mask to help me hide from people like Fred. It was part of what would become my armor. I don't think I want to hide anymore." She decides that she will wear makeup, the dresses, the shapewear and even the shoes if she wants to, if she feels like it. "If not...well, the world can deal. I'm doing this for me, not for anyone else. There's no more Fat Nat, no more Awesome Natalie, no more fake-it-till-you-make-it. There's just me." Natalie is helped further by Cody's acceptance of who she is. He gives her the confidence to be herself and we see this at the end of the novel when she chooses a casual outfit - one that isn't her armor.
After her expulsion, Natalie meets with Dr. Glass who tells her she is very much like Thomas Carver. She has the same reckless ambition as Carver, whose ambition cost Dr. Glass his right calf and foot many years ago. But Natalie is also like Carver in another aspect in that she too has created a public persona that is very different from the real person. Dr. Gallagher explained to Natalie earlier that Carver has "...cultivated a persona for himself - that of the dashing adventurer - and he does whatever it takes to keep that up. That includes taking advantage of situations like this to keep his name out there..." Dr. Glass recognizes Natalie's potential and hopes to mentor her, guiding her ambition and channeling it in a productive way.
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| The interior of the building covering the Waco Mammoth site. |
Mammoth is well-written novel that combines the themes of body shaming, self-acceptance, forgiveness and redemption against the unique setting of a Pleistocene paleo-dig in Texas. It's a strange but interesting combination that really works. Readers should be forewarned there are plenty of f-bombs and a few sexual innuendos in the novel.
Book Details:
Mammoth by Jill Baguchinsky
Nashville, Tennessee: Turner Publishing Company 2018
333 pp.
image credit: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/waco-mammoth-national-monument-180957432/
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