The End We Start From – Megan Hunter (2017) 127 pages
The End We Start From is poet Megan Hunter’s first novel, and she brings a poet’s precision to her longer-form writing. The words on the page are sparse and she knows how to use them to convey maximum meaning and build atmosphere.
The narrator is a young woman who has just given birth. The day her son arrives in the world is the day London disappears in floods, and so the newly-expanded family head north to her in-laws.
“R’s father N will not turn the television off. I stay in the kitchen, the only screenless room, with my smarting pulp on a cushion and the baby mushed against my breast.
R’s mother G will not stop talking. This not-stopping seems to be the first side-effect.
Everything has been unstopped, is rising to the surface.”
Referring to characters just by their initials adds to the general sense of disorientation as the woman adapts to her wholly new life. She views the horrors of what is happening to society at a step removed, aware but also wrapped up in her new baby. This means that while the novella is dystopian, it doesn’t have the relentless quality of some dystopian fiction. Instead it feels quietly unsettling and unnerving.
“It is bad, the news. Bad news as it always was, forever, but worse. More relevant. This is what you don’t want, we realise. What no-one ever wanted: for the news to be relevant.”
There is also a dark humour at moments, in the contrast between their old and new lives.
“He has not researched the best camp. He has not spent hours poring over comparative reviews of refugee camps. He wants none of them.”
The stark style of Hunter’s writing captures the fractured experience in the aftermath of a natural disaster. The reading experience is a series of startling images and arrested sentences that build to effective portrayal of new motherhood in extreme circumstances.
“Whatever I imagine, it is something else.
Where I expect desolation there is the atmosphere of a jumble sale.
Where I envisage welcomes and tea, smiles and Blitz spirit, there is grey concrete, wailing people dragging themselves across the road, photo-boards of the missing.
Our city is here, somewhere, but we are not.
We are all untied, is the thing.
Untethered, floating, drifting, all these things.
And the end. The tether, the re-leash, is not in sight.”
madame bibi lophile recommends 
Well, this is working out less costly for me so far than last year! I was taken by surprise by this book, steering well clear of dystopian fiction most of the time, but I thought the writing was superb. You’re quotes illustrate that beautifully.
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I must try harder! It’s my mission to add to everyone’s TBRs so mine looks minuscule by comparison 😀
I’m also not a big fan of dystopian fiction but this was very appealing. I’m also braver with my novella choices knowing that anything that’s not for me isn’t a huge undertaking where it takes me 100 pages to decide to abandon it – you know pretty quickly with a novella!
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Another excellent choice *heads for TBR list* 😀
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Hooray! Hope you enjoy it Liz 🙂
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Jolly interesting. I’m a bit iffy about dystopias nowadays but I might be able to cope with this one! 😀
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Yes, since we seem to be living in one I can’t read too much dystopian fiction! But this is very doable, due to the short length.
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These sounds very good. The quotes you have chosen show the quality of the writing too.
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I’m really glad you think so Ali. The writing really was excellent.
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For much of my life, I believed that if I voted for good-enough politicians, they would do the work of governing the country and I wouldn’t have to worry too much about it. Look how that turned out. The news IS relevant, to all of us, and the sooner each one of us figures that out, the better.
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Totally agree, sadly. I was discussing with friends the prime ministers we’ve had in our lifetime (6) only one of them I think had any sort of social conscience. A sorry state of affairs, and one that has led us into this Brexit shambles.
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Ah, this one sounds much more my kind of thing! I shall add it to the longlist, to be judged at month end. It’s also a great cover…
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Hooray! Glad I tempted you. Yes, it’s a lovely cover. I might have another one with a similar cover later too 😉
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A good point that it’s easier to be brave when you’re only dealing with 127 pages, perhaps I could give this a go!
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It’s only possible to take so much dystopia in one go! This is very manageable 🙂
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I was disappointed by this book when I read it last year… I think it was just too “motherhood” for me, but she does write beautifully and the setting is very evocative and atmospheric and chilling.
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There is a big focus on motherhood. I’m not a parent myself and I think those who are may have got a whole other level of meaning out of it. I loved the writing though.
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I actually read this one! My favourite thing about it was the focus on mother and baby. I remember noting that it does a good job (intended or not) of showing that the primary caregiver is a baby’s whole world. He/she feels safe and content with her/his mother while the rest of the world is in chaos.
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Yes, absolutely. The baby knows no different and she meets his needs, while everyone else is reeling.
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Love that cover!
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Gorgeous isn’t it!
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