Megan Hunter’s debut novel The End Where We Start From is a unique, thought-provoking novel with the context-based on post-apocalyptic fiction. It is very amusing to see how each character is familiarized with only a single alphabet. Moreover, the narrator herself does not open herself up. The story is set up in the United Kingdom of the near future. What actually happens is an unpredictable catastrophe occurs and much of London’s part is sinking underwater due to an increase in sea level. The story reflects that nobody was prepared for the disaster; as a consequence, a condition of mass panic was created among the locals there.
”I am hours from giving birth, from the event I thought would never happen to me, and R has gone up a mountain.”
While the catastrophe takes place, the protagonist is in her labor period and is only hours apart from giving birth. While her husband; R is gone away to climb mountains. She is living in a terror with an uncertain future and her husband is haunted by claustrophobia in a demolishing world. Whatever the situation is outside in the world, a baby named Z is born. Due to the catastrophe, they are compelled to leave their place and hence, they move out to live with R’s parents; G and N, up in the mountain. However, their faith seems to be sinking in bad luck. Not so farther, after a few days, both R’s mother and father are killed one after another during a mass panic in a crowded area. Now again, the narrator with her son and husband is compelled to move out of the place.
As the story goes on they are compelled to migrate time and again because of some consequences, they meet new people, they lose them and in all of these, they fight to survive the situations. The whole plot is about the story of survival and disaffection. Most part of the story is based on watching baby Z grows and the normalcy of his development is contrary to the outside world that has changed.
It is very amazing to find the framework of the novel to be poetic and sparse, making it easy, fun and short to read. I loved how the story covers the confusion; the pressure of being a new mother and of being identified as a woman apart from the aspect of motherhood. The End We Start From by Megan Hunter is a magnificent book that one must read who loves post-apocalyptic fiction. You can download The End We Start from pdf from amazon.com. Get the link below to begin have a one-sit read with a beautiful story;