Invasive Species

Praise for

INVASIVE SPECIES

“Joseph Wallace's
Invasive Species
cost me a perfectly good night's sleep. This thief of a story, like its
majizi
, overwhelms and parasitizes quickly in its complete zombification of the host's Self. This swift summoning hurtles the reader into the long dreaming days, the last terrifying madness confronted at your own mortal peril, and the inevitability of death. What more could an infected host ask of a story? I hope Wallace carries a screenplay of
Invasive Species
in his hip pocket; he's going to need it.”

—Bill Ransom, author of
Jaguar
and coauthor (with Frank Herbert) of
The Jesus Incident

“Wallace's unsettling, mind-bending apocalyptic novel chillingly dives into what happens when the balance of the world is disrupted and an invasive species grabs the reins. Terrifying and, yes, poetic, this is a novel that gets under your skin with an ‘it could happen here' kind of chilling grace.”

—Caroline Leavitt,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Pictures of You
and
Is This Tomorrow

DIAMOND RUBY

“A very special book. The comparisons to
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
are not made lightly: Joseph Wallace deserves that accolade and many more. Ruby is a wonderful, memorable character and Wallace's prose is a perfect match for her.”

—Laura Lippman,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Life Sentences
and
What the Dead Know

“The exciting tale of a forgotten piece of baseball's heritage, a girl who could throw with the best of them. A real page-turner, based closely on a true story.”

—Kevin Baker, author of
Strivers Row

“
Diamond Ruby
is a gem! Moving, fascinating, and ultimately exhilarating. I loved it!”

—S. J. Rozan, Edgar-winning author of
The Shanghai Moon

“Lively and entertaining . . . includes all sorts of colorful characters and fascinating social history . . . the story of an unassuming, courageous young woman who uses the national pastime to become a pioneering heroine in a man's world.”

—
The Washington Post

INVASIVE SPECIES

JOSEPH WALLACE

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

penguin.com

A Penguin Random House Company

INVASIVE SPECIES

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2013 by Joseph Wallace.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

BERKLEY
^®
is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-63596-4

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley premium edition / December 2013

Cover photos by Shutterstock/Getty Images.

Cover design by George Long.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

In memory of Dad, who shared his love of nature with me, and Mom, who put up with the consequences.

And to my brothers, Jonathan and Richard, my comrades in turning over countless mossy stones and rotten logs to see what wriggled and slithered beneath.

When do you start writing a novel?

For me, that's a complicated question. My novels usually begin with a combination treasure hunt/rummage sale: I am always accumulating offbeat facts, long-lost stories, and memorable details, usually with absolutely no idea when—or if—I'll be able to use them in a book. Then one day, out of the blue, a story comes together in my mind, and I'm able to say, “Now,
that's
why I kept those knickknacks around!”

I remember the most important inspiration for
Invasive Species
. It was a riveting essay whose title and author escape me (maybe one of you out there can help), detailing the author's move from the familiar northeast to a Texas farm filled with snakes and lizards and other wildlife unlike any he'd ever seen before.

The vignette I remember most vividly involved a wasp: a two-inch-long tarantula hawk, named for the spiders it would paralyze to feed its young.

The author was lying on a deck chair, watching the enormous wasp drag its paralyzed prey toward its lair. Three times, the author poked at the wasp with a stick, wanting to see if the tarantula, left alone, would revive.

The first two times, the wasp rose in the air and circled around before returning to its prey. The third time, however, it made a beeline straight to a spot three inches in front of the author's face. Lying back in his chair, he was helpless. If the hawk had wanted to unleash its excruciating sting or bite, he couldn't have stopped it.

Instead the wasp just hovered there, staring into his eyes. The message was clear: I'm giving you another chance. You do that one more time, though, and you're dead meat.

Then it flew back to resume its task. And the author, his heart pounding, left it alone.

Interspecies communication between two apex predators at its clearest: a smart, agile, venomous predator telling a human what was what, and the helpless human understanding—and heeding—the warning.

That
was where
Invasive Species
began.

You can't develop a long-remembered vignette into a novel without a ton of help. As always, my deepest gratitude goes to my wife, Sharon AvRutick, for many years now my first and most trusted reader. You would not believe how messy my books are before she sees them for the first time.

My children, Shana and Jacob, put up with my tendency to describe over dinner various fascinating, oft-disgusting things about bugs. Then again, they're used to me by now.

I'm grateful to my fellow members of the Marmaduke Writing Factory for gathering, renting the basement floor of a local historic house, and giving me access to the windowless conference room (“The Cave”) where this novel was written. It's the best “writers' retreat” I've ever attended.

When you spend most of your time alone in a cave, though, you come to crave human company. Thank goodness for the existence of the Black Cow Coffee Company in Pleasantville and its manager and baristas, including Linton, Emily, Michelle, Danielle, Jianna, Mike, Natalie, Emma, Austin, and Steven. I'm grateful to all of them for putting up with me after my solitary stints writing about the end of the world.

Thanks also to my high school writing students, who always inspire me: Cary, Becca, Violet, and Benji. Special gratitude to Emmalisa Stangarone, who began the year as my writing student and (while also finding time to sing, act, study, and apply to college) ended it as my research assistant. You'll see the results of her investigations into various topics—ranging from terrifying emerging diseases to bizarre cargo cults—in my forthcoming follow-up to
Invasive Species
, currently called
The Slavemakers
.

You can see Emmalisa herself in the book trailer for
Invasive Species
, which can be found at josephwallace.com.

What would I do in these uncertain times without Deborah Schneider, my literary agent? For years now, she's been my sherpa through an ever-shifting publishing environment, putting up with my moods and the fact that I don't ever seem to write the same kind of book twice. My lifetime dream was to publish a novel; if not for Deborah, I doubt it would ever have happened.

I'm so glad that
Invasive Species
landed with Berkley. It's been a pleasure to work with my editor, Natalee Rosenstein, her assistant, Robin Barletta, and the rest of the team. Every journey to publication should be like this one.

If you're interested in learning more about me and
Invasive Species
, check my website (josephwallace.com), my writing group's blog (marmadukewritingfactory.com), and my YouTube channel. You can also follow me on Twitter @Joe_Wallace and find me on Facebook at facebook.com/joewallacewriter. Hope to see you!