Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O’Brien
Book of the Week: 10 May 2020
My 1981 copy. Cover illustration by Lucinda Cowell
On a farm in a hidden green valley, a sixteen year old girl is the only survivor of a nuclear holocaust. Her family, and Mr and Mrs Klein the local store owners, set off to see if the Amish families who lived to the south had survived the devastation. They never returned. Ann has chickens and a couple of cows and plenty of supplies from Mr and Mrs Klein’s store. She is used to farming and cooking and manages to survive in the valley that is fed by a brook, where the water has somehow avoided being radioactive. She has almost managed to come to terms with the fact that she will spend her life alone and will never speak to another human being. Then, one day, she sees a plume of smoke in the distance and before long she discovers the source:
“It is a man, one man alone… he is dressed, entirely covered, in a sort of a greenish plastic-looking suit. It even covers his head, and there is a glass mask for his eyes… The reason he is coming so slowly is that he is pulling a wagon, a thing about the size of a big trunk, mounted on two bicycle wheels… He stopped to rest every few minutes. He still has about a mile to go to reach the top. I have to decide what to do.”
Is this man going to be friend or foe?
There is a constant undercurrent of tension in Ann’s simply told story. Amidst the fascinating practical details of survival, is an absorbing cat and mouse tale of isolation and the burdens and choices involved in staying alive under dreadful circumstances.
If you have read and enjoyed any of the following, this is a must-read:
Alone by David Brazier
Boy X by Dan Smith
The Explorer by Katherine Rundell
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell