A post-apocalyptic fable with unexpected overtones of optimism and patriotism, the latest novel from innovative English writer Jim Crace comes across a bit like Road Warrior meets Grapes of Wrath. Only prettier. The Pesthouse is set in a future America remote enough that technology has faded into history and become superfluous. As a result, the story has a sense of timelessness—it could just as easily be set hundreds of years ago, rather than in an era in which coins, books and the decomposing husks of giant metal machines amaze and baffle those who encounter them even as they're treasured as artifacts.

The story follows two young people, the awkward and gangly but good-hearted Jackson and the fiery-haired innocent Margaret, on a journey toward the coast where, they believe, ships will take them away from their own benighted land and into a more promising future. The title of the book refers to the wilderness hut where Jackson and Margaret meet. She's been stashed away there for exhibiting the flu-like symptoms of "the flux," a plague that periodically decimates the population of her village. He seeks shelter there one night while waiting for his injured knee to heal so he can rejoin his brother on their journey. Neither trajectory goes as expected; Margaret recovers, and Jackson winds up traveling with her instead of his brother.

By the end of the story, both protagonists have realized that good sense demands they leave behind what Crace calls "the taints and perils of America"—but their hearts, and circumstances, dictate otherwise. At one point, stranded at a port with several other emigrants and unable to leave as planned, someone comments that they're "all Americans now," and it's said with the resigned acceptance of a curse. But ultimately, Jackson and Margaret don't see it that way. Despite the criticisms inherent in a story set in an America that has driven itself to ruin, The Pesthouse ends up as a strangely patriotic novel—particularly if patriotism can be defined as loving a land and the idea of a country even when that idea clashes with reality.

Becky Ohlsen writes from Portland, Oregon. Copyright 2007 BookPage Reviews.

In this thoughtful and exciting post-apocalyptic tale, a man and a woman battle the elements and the forces of savage humanity to find a safe haven in a dying world. In America, a strange accident involving a landslide and released gases trapped at the bottom of a lake wipes out the population of coastal Ferrytown overnight. The sole survivors are Margaret, who had been taken to a "pesthouse" outside of town to recover or die from "flux," and the injured Franklin, left by his brother as they headed toward Ferrytown to board a ship bound for Europe and a better life. A practical, unmarried loner, Margaret teams with the younger Franklin, an immature but gentle giant, as they visit the remains of Ferrytown and then strike out for another port. They become separated when "rustlers" kidnap Franklin and leave the presumably contagious Margaret behind. Months later, the two are reunited and decide to head inland to begin a new life. Crace (Being Dead ), an award-winning British writer who should be more widely appreciated, manages to give depth and complexity to characters in a post-literate society who are practically nonverbal. With the popularity of Cormac McCarthy's The Road , one hopes that there will be more interest in Crace's latest effort. Recommended for all collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/07.]—Jim Coan, SUNY Coll. at Oneonta

In this postapocalyptic picaresque from Whitbread-winner Crace (for Quarantine ), America has regressed to medieval conditions. After a forgotten eco-reaction in the distant past, the U.S. government, economy and society have collapsed. The illiterate inhabitants ride horses, fight with bows and swords and scratch a meager living from farming and fishing. But with crop yields and fish runs mysteriously dwindling, most are trekking to the Atlantic coast to take ships to the promised land of Europe, gawking along the way at the ruins of freeways and machinery yards, which seem the wasteful excesses of giants. Heading east, nave farm boy Franklin teams up with Margaret, a recovering victim of the mysterious "flux" whose shaven head (mark of the unclean) causes passersby to shun her. Their love blossoms amid misadventures in an anarchic landscape: Franklin is abducted by slave-traders; Margaret falls in with a religious sect that bans metal and deplores manual labor, symbolically repudiating America's traditional cult of progress, technology and industriousness (masculinity takes some hits, too). Crace's ninth novel leaves the U.S. impoverished, backward, fearful and abandoned by history. Less crushing than Cormac McCarthy's The Road and less over-the-top than Matthew Sharpe's Jamestown (to name two recent postapocalyptos), Crace's fable is an engrossing, if not completely convincing, outline of the shape of things to come. (May)