Felt the need to add a rare positive review, as a lot of reviewers I think are missing the point.
The setup to Hanna Jameson's Novel, The Last is indisputably enticing: Jon Keller, an American academic, attends a conference in a remote Swiss hotel, when WWIII breaks out. In the aftermath of nuclear war, Jon and some of the other guests find the body of an unidentified girl floating in a water tank on the roof. Foul play is suspected. Jon, our unreliable narrator, becomes obsessed with finding the truth, in part (as he says) to avoid dwelling on the unknown fate of his wife and children back in the US.
A lot of commentary has focused on the ending of the book. I think people are just uncomfortable with an ending that is left a little ambiguous, or, maybe more accurately, left unresolved. With that said, by the end of the book there are no loose ends to tie up; the mystery is solved. If there are details missing, it's because the whodunit was never fundamental to the points that the author wanted to make. If readers are disappointed that we don't know the fate of the characters after the book closes, I struggle to understand how this is no different than any other work of fiction. It seems to me people want to read the lines, "And they all lived happily ever after." In life, we don't always get tidy endings, but all the character arcs reach a satisfying conclusion. In retrospect I found the book uplifting and hopeful, but also tragic, leaving the reader with a sense of longing.
To me, the central message of the book is articulated in the last few pages: "Perhaps the thing we do have to consider... is that the world didn't end. If the world had ended, we wouldn't still be here, surviving, grieving, and writing about it day by day... Maybe what's been f****** us up, more than anything, hasn't been finding a way to cope with the world ending, but finding a way to cope with the fact that it didn't." (p.339) As an avid fan of postapocalyptic fiction, The Last made me reflect on the genre as a whole. I came to the realization that postapocalyptic fiction isn't about worst-case future scenarios; it's about the present. Our lives, right now. In the postapocalyptic fiction, after the collapse the world becomes a dog-eat-dog world. Ordinary people devolve into vicious cannibals. Crime and violence become rampant. In real-life disasters, research has shown that, far from degenerating into animals, people generally become more cooperative, altruistic event. A sense of common cause and community develops, much in the way the author sketches out through the course of the novel. Rather, it's "ordinary" everyday capitalism which promotes alienation from one another, creates a cutthroat hyper-competitiveness in which everyone is out to stab the other in the back. As Jon ruminates late in the novel, "None of us had been happy [before the apocalypse]. Any image of our former lives hurt like trauma from an old wound. It was never happy, but it had been familiar. You knew every day that it wasn't sustainable, but we'd all had to live it, somehow. It wasn't happiness. It wasn't peace. But sometimes, for us, it had been quiet." (p. 283-284)
*minor spoiler below*
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My only quibble is that in a scene in which an OD'd character is revived using Narcan, he pops back into consciousness. I'm assuming the author has never dosed someone with Narcan before. I've done it a few times now and people generally groggily wake back up; it's not at all like the scene in Pulp Fiction which the characters reference.
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An Apocalyptic Murder Mystery!
American Historian, Jon Keller, is attending a Conference at the remote L’Hotel Sixteme in Switzerland when the end of the world hits.WASHINGTON gone.LONDON gone.NEW YORK gone.BERLIN gone.SCOTTLAND gone.Decimated in nuclear attacks around the globe.Then the INTERNET dies.Jon, and the 20 staff and guests who make the decision to remain at L’Hotel Sixteme, are cut-off with no idea of what’s happening outside their walls. Has Switzerland been hit? Is there anybody else out there? Is help coming? Jon has no idea if his wife, and two daughters, living in San Francisco are still alive?Then, as if their situation isn’t dire enough, on Day Fifty, the body of a young girl is discovered floating in the sealed rooftop water tank. An autopsy by the hotel’s only doctor reveals no water in her lungs, and the estimated time of death is approximately two months ago. Is someone in the hotel a murderer? In the pursuit of justice, Jon decides to investigate, penning a historical account, written in real time, of what he discovers, so that anyone who reads it in the future will know what went on.It rare to find a book that combines ‘survivors of a nuclear attack’ and a ‘locked room Agatha Christie style murder mystery’, and I have to say I’ve never read anything quite like this before. A small isolated group of people’s growing fear, grief, uncertainty and paranoia over being trapped together, clinging to life and hope that they WILL survive, all the while praying that there are others out there working just as hard to stay alive, and that humanity stands a chance of building a future together, made this a scary and eye-opening read. Coupled with this, the possibility that one among them may be a child killer chilled me to the bone.Some parts brought ‘The Shining’ to mind – grand expansive hotel in the middle of nowhere, with a dark past, and possibly haunted. Kept me on my toes constantly wondering whether the building was a sanctity or a threat – part of me wanted them to flee, part of me wanted them to stay.I would’ve preferred a more action-based plot. The scenes that were I found fast-paced and exciting, but there just wasn’t enough of them for my liking, meaning the middle of the book dragged, with not a lot happening. I already knew this going in having read other reviews, but just in case you don’t, I will say that you are never given any answers as to why the nuclear war happened in the first place, who was responsible, and no details regarding the US President and government. Somewhat frustrating, but I accept that it wasn’t relevant to the storyline. I was a little annoyed that the mystery took somewhat of a backseat, instead tended to focus on, sharing, and preserving, stories about character’s lives, although I will admit that the resolution to the mystery was immensely satisfying and surprising. Same goes for the last 100 pages, and I was very happy with how everything wrapped up, and I now understand why the plot was so character-driven.An utterly original little story, that threw me for a loop. Recommend giving it a read.
Top reviews from other countries
Amazon Customer
Way more interesting than the summary lets you think
Reviewed in France on December 10, 2019Catherine Therese Krüger
A Light Suspenseful Read
Reviewed in Germany on May 26, 2019