43. The Pesthouse by Jim Crace

Whitbread winning author Crace explores a postapocalyptic America in his newest novel. Set sometime in the future, readers are not sure of why America is in the state it is in. People have reverted back to an almost medieval way of life, with machinery abandoned on long forgotten highways and people making their living by fishing and farming. As supplies dwindle, people naturally start heading east to try to join ships heading to Europe, where life is rumored to be better. Two of these travelers, Franklin and Margaret meet when Margaret is hiding in a pesthouse, recovering from the deadly flux. Franklin has injured his leg and joins Margaret to rest up for his journey when most of the inhabitants of the nearby town, Ferrytown, are killed overnight. Being the only survivors, they head on towards the sea, encountering harsh conditions such as being abducted by people seeking out work slaves, and trying to survive on barely any food.

Crace will unfortunately have comparisons made to Cormac McCarthy’s powerful The Road, which came out in 2006. While both books dealt with people making a journey to the sea, and in both books readers never completely know what has happened to make America like it is, this book shows how people revert back to an “old-fashioned” way of life to survive. It is also a subtle love story between the two characters that grows stronger as the novel progresses. While I liked the emotionally powerfully McCarthy book slightly more, this is still an excellent representation of apocalyptic fiction. For similar books on this subject check out this reading list: http://www.booksite.com/texis/scripts/bookletter/showarchive.html?sid=6631&nlid=46a4cc1f5%20