Small Game: A Novel

By Blair Braverman

A gripping debut novel about a survival reality show gone wrong that leaves a group of strangers stranded in the northern wilds

 Four strangers and six weeks: this is all that separates Mara from one life-changing payday. She was surprised when reality TV producers came knocking at Primal Instinct—the survival school where she teaches rich clients not to die during a night outdoors—and even more shocked to be cast in their new show, Civilization. Now she just has to live off the land with her fellow survivors for long enough to get the prize money.

Whisked by helicopter to an undisclosed location, Mara meets her teammates: The grizzled outdoorsman. The Eagle Scout. The white-collar professional. And Ashley, the beautiful but inexperienced one who just wants to be famous. Mara’s unusual, rugged childhood has prepared her for the discomforts and hard work ahead. But trusting her fellow survivors? Not part of Mara’s skill set.

When the cast wakes one morning to find something has gone horribly wrong, fear ripples through the group. Are the producers giving them an extra challenge? Or are they wrapped up in something more dangerous? Soon Mara and the others face terrifying decisions as “survival” becomes more than a game.

A provocative exploration of the comforts, rituals, and connections we depend upon, Small Game is a gripping page-turner and a poignant story about finding the courage to build a new life from the ground up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Nov 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9780063066199

Blair Braverman

BLAIR BRAVERMAN is a writer, dogsledder, and adventurer who uses innovative storytelling to make the outdoors accessible. She is the author of Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube, a contributing editor to Outside magazine, and a contributor to The New York Times, Vogue, This American Life, and elsewhere. She lives in the northwoods with her husband, Quince Mountain, and their team of sled dogs.

Book preview

1

Ashley wanted to be famous. That’s not an insult, it’s the truth. She said so herself on the first night, sitting cross-legged by the fire after the cameras left. Back when they were all still new to each other. She said, I’m here to get famous, aren’t you? Mara had never heard anyone talk about fame that way, like it was something you could earn and spend. But that was Ashley, or how she used to be. Practical, even in the woods.

The funny thing is that it probably would have worked. Ashley was magazine-gorgeous, with this earnest charm, like she saw everyone for who they wanted to be instead of who they were. Someone like that, once the world noticed her, she could write her ticket. She’d smuggled a folding comb in her bra and buried it behind camp, so she could smooth her long hair each morning before the camera crew came back. She said it was her job to look good.

Then there was Kyle. Kyle was an Eagle Scout, which meant a lot to him, although none of the others even pretended to care. A skinny kid with red hair and perfect posture. He was nineteen, from Indiana, and he had a way of waiting after people spoke, just a beat too long, to see if they were finished talking. It was meant to be polite, but it creeped Mara out. She had always felt most comfortable around people who ignored her.

Bullfrog was a carpenter from Michigan. He barely talked to his teammates those first weeks, though he talked to the cameras. He was a real anarchist type, old-school. The kind who wouldn’t call it anarchy, just country living or fuck the government or something like that. Mara didn’t understand why he’d want to be on a reality show. It took her a long time to make sense of Bullfrog at all.

There was a fifth guy, too. James. Probably out thriving somewhere. You wouldn’t think he’d be the most painful for Mara to think about, but that’s how it goes. He was the only one who got out in time.

THE SHOW WAS CALLED CIVILIZATION. THEIR CLOTHES WERE FAST-FASHION PREHISTORIC, canvas tunics and matching shorts, all dyed a dusty brown. And sandals made of thin leather, so they had to walk delicately, toe first, like girls playing fairies. The idea was that they’d found one another in the wilderness, this group of strangers, and over the course of six weeks would be tasked with building a new kind of community, something pure and sustainable and right. They would forgo all comforts, so that viewers didn’t have to. They would be one with the forest. They would find a way to live.

Presumably the process would reveal something about the dawn of civilization. What society would look like if it were made from scratch, that sort of thing. How it might be different. You could practically hear the pitch meeting.

But really it was just a survival show. That’s what they told Mara in the auditions. She said, Look, I’m not trying to rebuild society. I’m just trying to get out of it. She had plenty to get away from. Her boyfriend, Ethan, for one thing, who was the real survival geek of the two of them. The casting agent said, Don’t worry about the conceit. How are you at building shelters? Have you ever used snares? Of course she had, and he knew that. So she mumbled along, and she must have fit whatever slot they were looking to fill. Young woman with experience, not beautiful, to balance out Ashley, who was beautiful but inexperienced. They must have done that with the men, too. The Eagle Scout, the math teacher, the old grouch who had a heart of gold—or with the right edits, the right music, they could make it seem like he did. The survivors might as well have introduced themselves by their archetypes.

At the time the show found Mara, she was living in a camper with Ethan pretty deep in the woods. The camper wasn’t road-worthy, but they’d built two walls and a roof around it, so it stayed dry even in the soggy Washington winter. They had lived there three years at that point, and the camper felt smaller each season. They were always in each other’s way. They did laundry in a pond and smoked too much. It bothered Ethan that Mara had grown up off-grid, whereas he’d come to the lifestyle for the aesthetic, or at least that’s what she said when they fought. But he had the dedication of a convert. He was always coming up with new ideas—solar ovens, beehives, a greenhouse made of reclaimed windows from the dump. She wanted a dishwasher.

Four days a week, Ethan and Mara worked at a survival school run by a former blockchain developer named Bjørn. They taught classes sometimes, trapping and fire-building and so on, but the school’s biggest business was leaving clients in the woods overnight. There were always people willing to pay for the experience: a steady stream of tech bros, spiritual seekers, and corporate burnouts from Seattle, for whom camping itself would have felt too banal. If they paid good money, their night outside was recognized, celebrated.

In the mornings, Mara gathered clients from their assigned sites and made them scrambled eggs over a campfire, assuring them that they had indeed conquered the wilderness, though a fair number spent the night shivering, and never built or caught anything at all. Then she gave out braided leather bracelets in a fireside ceremony. She could tell people treasured them. Like they’d wear their bracelets to the office on Monday, and touch them throughout the day to remind themselves who they really were.

Civilization’s casting team came to the survival school, which was called Primal Instinct, to search for talent. They brought the instructors one by one into a hotel room, sat them on the edge of a bed, and asked for their life stories. Just the highlights: age, family, hobbies, trauma. They must have liked Mara’s, because the next day they called her back to the hotel. The room was disheveled by then, and the bedspread less crisp.

So tell me, said the casting agent from behind a giant lens. He wore a blazer and sipped an energy drink through a straw. What skills would you bring to this challenge?

He told her to answer in full sentences, as if she were not responding to a question at all, but simply thinking aloud.

I would bring many skills to the challenge, said Mara, feeling uncomfortable. For instance, I’m good at foraging. She was good at a lot of things outdoors, but foraging was the first that came to mind.

That’s good, he said. That’s a start. Can you say it with more conviction?

Mara sat up straighter, which was hard, because the edge of the bed sloped down. I’m very good at foraging.

Do you think you can last six weeks out there?

Probably.

Probably?

Anything could happen. I could get struck by lightning. But I think my odds are good.

What would you say your odds are?

Better than most.

Full sentences. And look, you do you, but if you could sound more confident—

She was trying.

I will last six weeks in the challenge, Mara said. Then, when he didn’t respond, I know for a fact that I can last six weeks out there, whatever happens. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again.

That wasn’t strictly accurate. Mara rarely slept outside the camper when she wasn’t working; she didn’t see the point. But the agent liked it.

Great, he said. Perfect. Do you want to add anything about making nature your bitch?

I’d rather not, she said.

Okay, he said, glancing at his notes. That was promising, Mary. That’ll do for now.

She did not expect to hear from him again. But a few weeks later, the show’s producer, Lenny, called and told her she’d made the cut. She had three days to commit or decline.

Bjørn was thrilled. Having an instructor on television would be a boon for Primal Instinct. He could offer special promotions, and host a public viewing party with chaga beer and cricket chips for snacks. He’d charge a premium for Mara’s classes. Even rebrand the school around the show, if it came to that. He asked Mara to mention Primal Instinct by name as many times as she could.

When Mara told Ethan the news, he went outside and didn’t come back all afternoon. She took a nap on the futon, pleased to have the camper to herself. By evening he was ready to talk.

I’m just concerned, he said. I don’t want them to take advantage of you. Don’t you think it’s degrading? Going out there for everyone to see? Living like we do, it’s . . . it’s sacred. It’s not a publicity stunt.

Then why did you interview for the show?

That was an experiment, he said. I wouldn’t say yes if they asked me.

Mara liked that it bothered him, and that he couldn’t stop her. She hadn’t put much hope in the interview process—she’d assumed that, like most things, it wouldn’t work out—but now that she had a choice, it gave her a warm sense in her belly, and even more so because Ethan disapproved. Besides, there was prize money. Anyone who made it six weeks got a hundred grand. She thought she’d leave Ethan if she made it, start over with the cash, and maybe he sensed that.

She called Lenny and told him she wanted in. She was going to be in Civilization’s opening cast, part of a brand-new journey. This will be the hardest thing you ever do, Lenny told her.

Of course, she said. But she doubted it.

LENNY ASKED MARA TO FILM HERSELF GETTING READY, BUT SINCE THE DETAILS OF the show were meant to be a surprise, she wasn’t sure how to prepare. She mostly walked around the property and showed off things she had already done. Ethan made sure she introduced him. This is our wood-fired hot tub we built, she said, and he added, from outside the frame, We built it together, like she hadn’t just said that. Ethan had a structure behind the camper, a medieval-style roundhouse that he’d worked on sporadically for years. It wasn’t finished, but it was still impressive, with stone walls and a pointy roof. She could tell that Ethan wanted her to film it, but she didn’t. In her mind she had already won the money, and could afford to distinguish between what was hers and what was his.

Lenny sent an eighty-page contract, which Mara was meant to sign in a dozen places and return. She read some of it, then skipped to the part about the prize. There it was: one hundred thousand dollars. With money like that, she’d have options. She could get her GED. There was a community college nearby with a two-year program in wind turbines, and she’d heard that its graduates did well. Mara didn’t care about wind turbines, but she thought she’d be good at the job—working alone, fixing things. She had always been quick to learn.

That was how she felt about survivalism, too. It wasn’t that she was naturally talented, though she knew she was better than most people, and was probably the best instructor at Primal Instinct. She just spent a lot of time in the woods, and she wasn’t upset about being uncomfortable or working hard. It was easy for her to do one task and then another, and then another, which was the way to get through most things in life. She didn’t overthink.

At work, her clients overthought everything. They got cold and some part of them feared they’d be cold forever. They used terms like starvation mode after half a day, and they meant it. When their campouts ended, they were either thrilled or morose, with no middle ground. Mara never understood how a client could be disappointed in the morning. After all, they’d set out to stay in the woods overnight, and they’d succeeded. But clearly there was something else that clients wanted, and no way to gauge from the outside if they found it or not.

The happiest clients weren’t the ones who gathered food, or even made a nice fire, but the ones who built things. Who shaped nature, even slightly, into a form that served or inspired them. A good shelter could do that: a debris hut on a cold night, with mounds of dry leaves to hold in warmth. Or a lean-to on a rainy afternoon: that damp, solid feeling of drops striking all the world but you.

One time Mara went to retrieve a client and found her in a garden made of stones. It must have been ten feet across, a labyrinth of pebbles, a spiral with waves extending out like the rays of a sun. The woman sat cross-legged in the middle, smiling, though she had no shelter or water or food. But she seemed content in a way Mara had rarely seen. When Mara gave her a bracelet, she kissed it before tying it around her wrist, and then she closed her eyes.

Later Mara brought other instructors to see the stones. Normally they took camps apart after clients left, unweaving branches and burying the remains of fires, but none of them wanted to break the maze. So they left it untouched, and stopped bringing people to that spot. Mara often wondered if the stones were still there.

For a while she told other clients about the labyrinth, hoping they’d try something similar. Mostly they were dismissive. I’m here to survive, not play with rocks, a guy told her, like she was the one who didn’t get it. Like surviving the night was some big achievement, when it was far easier than making something beautiful. The secret to survival, Mara thought, was that it was hard to die. Even if you gave in, gave up, just sat there and waited for it. You could be waiting a long time.

2

On her last shift before leaving for the show, Mara was assigned to supervise three Ultimates with her friend Simone. Ultimate was the most advanced package that Primal Instinct offered, and also the most expensive, though it required from instructors the least amount of work. Clients had to sleep outside for two nights without a tent, and with limited supplies: a tin cup, a knife, fishing line and one hook, matches, and their choice of tarp or wool blanket. Mara thought the blanket was better, though few people picked it. Sometimes they even declined the matches, saying they’d build a primitive fire instead. That was when Mara knew they were in for a rough weekend.

Ultimates cost nine hundred dollars per person. But no one complained about the cost, not like they did with classes and basic overnights, which were much cheaper. They expected to be transformed, and everyone knew that transformation was expensive. Clients were glad to pay. These weren’t all people with money, either. Some of them had saved for a year.

Mara liked doing Ultimates, especially with Simone. They hung out in the company van, parked in the shoulder of a dirt road, and three times a day made rounds of the clients’ sites to make sure no one was panicking or hurt. If a client wanted help or company, they offered it. But mostly they waved and moved on, or even crept by unnoticed. That week their shift started Saturday morning, after the clients’ first night. Mara and Simone left the van an hour after dawn and headed into the woods for rounds. The sky was bright, and columns of sunlight shone through openings in the leaves.

Mara carried a first aid kit, water, and bags of trail mix, though she wouldn’t offer supplies unless asked. She also brought a live snake in a cotton bag. If a client seemed too discouraged, Simone would distract them, and Mara would release the snake into their camp.

The snakes they brought weren’t venomous. They were gopher snakes, native to the northwest, and came special-ordered from a pet store. Mara hated buying them. The teenagers at checkout were earnest, and had been trained to ask questions. Do you have a heat lamp? they asked. Do you have bedding? And Mara would nod and say yes, yes, this isn’t my first snake. I understand that a snake is a lifetime responsibility. I am prepared to give this snake what it needs. It was true that Bjørn had terrariums back at headquarters. But the longest they’d kept a snake was a month, and that was in January, when business was slow.

Instructors weren’t supposed to release a snake unless a client really needed a boost. But when they did, the snake made a big difference. Usually one of two things happened. One, a client killed and ate it, or killed it, took a proud bite, and discarded the rest. Bjørn picked gopher snakes in particular because they were large, easy to pin with a branch, even for those with untrained reflexes.

More often, clients didn’t catch the snake, but they came out with a story. When two clients were together, Mara could watch it go down. Did you see that? one would ask.

And the other: Is there a chance it was a rattlesnake?

I couldn’t tell.

Me neither.

Actually, yeah, I think—you saw the rattle, right? Constructing a truth in real time, lying so they could both believe it. Then they were happy. Probably the snake was, too. It could slither off and eat rats for a decade until someday getting eaten by a hawk.

That weekend, the first Ultimate consisted of a dad and his teenage son, which was a pretty standard combination. They camped by a pond—a decent site, plenty of bluegills, though it shimmered with mosquitos in all but the hottest hours of the day. Mara waved through the trees, and the dad lifted a hand, but there was no urgency to his wave. All good.

The second duo was an older couple, who had asked not to be interrupted. It always made Mara nervous when couples said that, because she had to check on them anyway, and it meant they might be fucking. She found them by a fire in a dense grove, their eyes closed, chanting words she didn’t know. The man rested his palms on his wife’s wrists. It was too intimate; it made Mara uncomfortable. She was glad to slip away.

The last location was one of her favorites. A waterfall bounced down mossy boulders and landed in a pool full of newts. When the sun was low, the spray cast rainbows. The newts wiggled to the surface and then drifted back down, dozens of them, rising and falling in waves. Newts were poisonous, so you couldn’t eat them, but Mara could watch for hours and not get bored.

This was a single Ultimate, a man who’d come alone. But when Mara and Simone reached the waterfall, there was nobody there. Simone found the wool blanket folded neatly by a tree, with a cup and a knife beside it. It wasn’t uncommon for clients to go walking, but normally they brought their knives.

What do you think? said Simone. Wait or go?

Let’s go, said Mara. I don’t mind coming back. If they didn’t set eyes on a client, they had to return an hour later. If the client was still missing, they called Bjørn. He always had his phone.

You sure?

Yeah. It’s no problem. Mara felt oddly restless. She didn’t want to wait.

Back at the van, Simone put her feet on the dash. There were cots in the back,

Reviews for Small Game

[muddyboy · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A book with a plot familiar to those that watch the "survivor" series on television. Mara teaches classes on survival skills and cs chosen to spend six weeks with three others in the wilds. They have their struggles but things really take a turn when the television camera crew comes up missing and they are truly on their own, Not a whole lot unique about this one.

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Five people set out on a reality show about wilderness survival. The narrator is a woman raised by survivalists who’s tried to find a way out, but needs money to have choices. She falls fast and hard for Ashley, who’s there to get famous. Then, a few weeks before the scheduled end, things change fast, and the show turns deadly real. It’s got a lot of sharp observations about how women manage men for their advantage and safety; the narrator is very conscious of what she’s doing but also understandably does not feel powerful in doing it. Survival, here, is not about wilderness competence but about the benefits of connection and larger human society. It ends kind of abruptly, as if Braverman wasn’t interested in the denouement, which I very much was.

[queencersei · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Four strangers enter a six-week survivor competition for a reality TV show called Civilization. Mara is employed by a survival school where she teaches the well off how to survive in the wilderness for a night or two. When she is selected for the competition, she sees this as her ticket to a new life. Dropped blindfolded into competition, Mara meets her fellow contestants. An 18-year-old Eagle Scout, an outdoorsman, a white-collar worker and Ashley, whose goal is to be famous. Each of the contestants needs the $100,000 cash prize, so that they too can transform their lives. Early into the competition, something goes horribly wrong. The producer and sound crew vanish. At first, the group believe this to be some sort of challenge. As the days go by, they grow to understand that they have been abandoned and that they truly must work as a team for them to have even a chance at survival.Small Game is an interesting concept. A production company loses its funding and cannot continue filming the show, so it has to pull the plug. The idea that they would forget about its cast, leaving them stranded in a forest is astounding though. The characters speculate what happened to the crew, but there is never a concrete answer given as to how they were forgotten. There really should have been a more solid explanation given for what happened. The lack of it gives the book a feeling of being incomplete.

[ridgewaygirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'll be honest and admit that the entire reason I picked up Blair Braverman's debut novel is because her dogs are lovely and happy. Turns out, this may be an excellent way to choose a book. This is the kind of thriller that takes its time, develops the characters along with a sense of rising dread and then delivers a punch that really delivers. Mara grew up as the only child of parents intent on living off the grid, which prepared her well for her job at a wilderness school, delivering expensive "survival" weekends for wealthy people. When producers choose her for a reality show sending a group to an undisclosed wilderness location with the challenge of surviving together, she sees a way to improve her life and maybe even live somewhere with solid floors and a dishwasher. Her skills are stretched in an unfamiliar place early in Spring and her fellow contestants have their own motivations for being there, but all that is far less important than what happens with the producers and crew.Braverman clearly spent time and effort in crafting a thriller in which the many parts hold together. This is a story that is terrifyingly believable and still it surprised me. And no dogs were harmed.

[twink_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I admit - I have watched a few (okay, more than a few) survival shows. They're great escapist television that I'm happy to watch from the couch.I was intrigued by the premise of Blair Braverman's new book - Small Game. Four participants, three men, two women, six weeks and the last one standing wins it all. For Mara, it sounds like an easy win. After all, she's been brought up with a survivor mind set and she actually teaches survival skills as her job. The book is told from Mara's point of view. We meet the others through her experiences and interactions. I was immediately on board with Mara. We are privy to her inner thoughts, doubts, and reasons for coming on the show. Braverman takes a deeper view with Mara's experiences. The others? Their actions speak volumes. Now, the first bit is as you would expect - setting up camp, getting to know the competition - and the behind the scenes machinations. I've always wondered about how much is scripted on this type of show. But things change with startling event - is it real or is it scripted? This is the part where I couldn't stop listening. Why? Well, their continued survival of course. But the second half of the book delves deeper into the here and now., leaving the past behind and hoping for more from life. If they survive. This facet was also well written.Here's the neat bit - Braverman herself has been on a survivor show and she's an adventurer and dog sled racer. Her writing benefits greatly from that experience. And I like the title that can be taken more than one way.I chose to listen to Small Game. I find some books are just better for me in an audio format. This was very much the case with Small Game. I become immersed in the tale when I listen. The reader was Kristen Sieh and she did a fantastic job interpreting and presenting Small Game. Her voice suited the mental image I had drawn for Mara perfectly. Sieh's voice is crisp, clear, and easy to understand. She has a well modulated tone to voice that matches Mara's personality and demeanor. The speed is just right for this characters. She also provides different, believable voice for the other characters. She captures the emotions of the players very well.

[caitz-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A group of five strangers agree to participate in a survival TV game. They each have their reasons - money, fame, recognition from a daughter, just to prove they can. But the game is not as it first seems. Real danger lurks when the TV crew suddenly stops appearing every day. I liked this wilderness adventure/survival story. Braverman has developed interesting characters and plausible situations. I do wish the conclusion was more detailed. Some problems were not resolved, but I hope this means a second book is forthcoming. Thanks to Ecco Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Publication date: 11/1/22