A Gift Upon The Shore is a post-apocalyptic novel that owes much to Walden by Henry David Thoreau, Earth Abides by George R. Stewart and A Canticle for Lebowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. This is not a tale of gun-battles, epic struggles, mutants or invading hordes. Nor does it feature (predominately) male heroes who are are brave, resolute, resourceful and armed to the teeth. It doesn't even have all that much in common with the classic post-apocalyptic/nuclear war novel Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank which features brave, resolute, resourceful male protagonists and brave, resolute, resourceful female protagonists who take care of hearth and home while the men are off doing manly things. It's a simple story about two women who struggle to survive as well as try to preserve what little they can of civilization and the potential for Humanity's advancement. Their enemies are nature (as well as their ally) and ignorance. Not a mutant or Russian soldier in sight in A Gift Upon The Shore. It's a story heavy with melancholy and pessimism. In the end there is a triumph (of sorts), but there are many questions and doubts about the future. All in all it's an easy read and a fast read. When I finally got around to opening it up it took me probably four hours to get through it. But I never found myself growing bored or indifferent to the fate of the main character - Mary Hope. Published in 1990 this is a story heavily influenced by the time during which it was written. The Eighties saw the conservative Christian Fundamentalist movement surge onto the political and social scene in the United States. The Cold War became a very real concern (again) and the Environmental/Green Movement started to become a louder voice by the end of the decade. I recall in the Eighties there were public book-burnings (though admittedly these were few and far between and often staged for the publicity by opportunistic individuals) and various groups began to push for removing certain books from public library shelves and out of the public schools.There was a lot of talk about the spread of illiteracy in the United States while others pushed for censorship of not just books, but anything that might be deemed inappropriate. The fear of Nuclear War and Nuclear Winter was strong and many believed we were heading for a war with the Soviet Union. It was simply a matter of time. I could go on, but you get the picture. In retrospect it was no different than any other decade. There are always fears and concerns about the future. People are always convinced that we are on the brink of oblivion and nothing can be done to prevent it. But the fears and concerns take on a different context depending on the decade and the areas where one lives. Oh and one's own personal background. M.K. Wren moved to the Oregon coast in the mid-sixties. She is originally from Texas. One might call it the "buckle of the bible-belt". The Oregon coast ,however, is most assuredly not in the Bible-belt. An artist, book-lover, and freethinker I have no doubt that she had become concerned about the social and political trends moving through the United States in the mid-eighties. Concerned enough that she decided to write a novel of a possible future if those trends continued unabated. I can't say that for certain without speaking to M.K. Wren of course, but I still suspect I'm not that far off the mark. I make this observation because I think it's important to have a sense of where an author might have been "coming from" when he or she wrote their book. If you understand that it can help make their plot and characters more understandable. I bring this up because there are more than a few who are disturbed by her depiction of Christians. I'm not defending her characterizations, but I am arguing that there might be an explanation for why Ms. Wren did what she did. Look back at the Evangelical movement of the 1980's and the so-called Moral Majority and then ask yourself if she didn't have a reason to be concerned. However I also admit that her surroundings might have given a greater sense of danger and threat then the conservative Christian movement might have really represented. My wife is from Portland, Oregon and over the past twenty-five years I've spent many days and weeks in Western Oregon. It's a very Liberal area and like any area that is dominated by one group or philosophy things can be a bit skewed. In the end this isn't a bad post-apocalyptic novel. It works hard to rise above some of the conventions of the genre. It's intelligently written and mostly believable. I have a few qualms with how the world is conveniently depopulated. The two women are very lucky - especially when considering what befalls everyone around them in the first few years after the war. But those things occur in stories like this. If the protagonists didn't make it then the stories would last for sixty pages and end with their deaths. Out of print now, but worth looking for if you are into PA novels and stories. Whatever it's failings at least it has some intelligence and is trying to give us more than just Zombies and machine-guns wielded by muscular heroes.Now if we're talking muscular machine-guns wielding Zombies.......well that's another thing entirely.
Another novel of the nuclear apocalypse, focusing on the attempt of two women to stockpile as many books as possible in order to bequeath some semblance of culture and civilization to the descendants that they hope will some day rebuild humanity (note: based on everything else in the novel, this is a 100% foolhardy hope). The narrative is presented as a frame story where Mary Hope, aged 65ish, is telling a child the story of Mary Hope, aged 25ish, and her misadventures around the time of the collapse of civilization-and misadventures they are. The younger Mary is one of those characters whose every choice makes you clutch your head and groan, but fortunately she has the much older and wiser Rachel to guide her (until she voluntarily leaves Rachel's guidance in the most exasperating of all the awful choices she makes). The narrative tension in both stories revolves around surviving after war (and focuses, more than many books of this ilk, on a return to the land and small farm-steading over scavenging, but more on that below), with the added struggle in the later sections of sharing the farm with a group of literalist patriarchal Christians.The odd part, though, is that even with this book's unrelenting critique of patriarchy and reactionary religion, it isn't really a feminist novel. Not quite anti-feminist, but not quite in the place I'd like it to be, either... it could maybe be described as a conservatively essentialist pro-woman-but-only-a-certain-kind-of-woman work? (That isn't really a thing, I just made it up... although that Lefanu book that I'm currently reading makes a distinction between "feminist" sf and "feminised" sf, which I think it as good a way as any to look at it, and this certainly falls into the latter category). Even while the two protagonists are very strong and capable women (and not just at "women's work," which continually astonishes the Christians), the younger Mary is constantly fixated on the importance of childbearing, most of her awful choices revolve around the first man she meets post-apocalypse, and the book is aggressively heteronormative throughout, which is especially surprising given its focus on "relativism" and the impossibility of external truths. Further, the main villain isn't even one of the sexist Christian men. No? No. It's the leader of the Christian women, a totally flat and unsympathetic cardboard cutout of a character.* [spoiler below]Anyway most post-apocalyptic books are, in one way or another, a meditation on modernity, and the other weird tension here is that Wren and her characters can't really make up their minds about whether they're happy to see it go or not (not that this isn't a valid point of confusion). This is a book steeped in romanticism, and lush descriptions of the beauty of nature makes up a large part of the text. The ruins of civilization, on the other hand, rarely merit much more of a mention than "There were some burned-out buildings," these buildings (and nature), of course, having become victims of the more impressively destructive impulses of modern technology. At the same time, however, this novel is one long ode to the cultural creations of modernity, and a more explicit examination of this dichotomy would have served this novel well.* whose ultimate punishment, no less, is the death of her child at her own hand!
Do You like book A Gift Upon The Shore (2000)?
Originally published in 1990, it seems like the publisher is re-releasing this title in the midst of Hunger Games hysteria. It will play well with readers that can handle more character development and a slower pace than the aforementioned series. It may not play well with those sensitive to criticism of the Christian religion.The story is set after a large nuclear explosion occurs in the United States, and the narrative focuses upon how the character not only survives the loss of nearly everything dear to her, but also how she adapts to fundamentalists that seem to be the only other survivors. One friend from before the blast survives with the narrator, and together they decide that beyond pro-creation with the crazies, preserving books is the best gift they can leave for any other survivors. Anyone who loves books will appreciate this plot device and it leads to a lot of suspense and a fantastic ending. The author selects some great quotes for the purpose of foreshadowing before every chapter. If you are fascinated with a gloomy dystopian future and how humans would react, give this book a read. The character types are a bit different from all the other titles in this genre.
—Johnathon Neist
4.5 stars really. What kept it from being a 5 star book for me was that there was a preachy quality to the book that, at times, bothered me. The women in the book were just as set in their thinking at times as the religious folk were and yet unable to see the hypocrisy of having disdain for another's viewpoint while thinking their's was the only viewpoint that was correct was bothersome. The very behaviour that they found disturbing in the people of the religious sect, they themselves exhibited time and again in their dealings with them. I thought that with all the wisdom Rachel was purported to have had she may have had the wisdom to apply some understanding and compassion to these people raised in such horrendous circumstances. After all it doesn't seem a huge leap to suppose that religious minded people of a cultish sect may interpret the end of the world as God's punishment, and children raised in these circumstances would have a difficult time thinking otherwise.Aside from that criticism though, it was a very well crafted book and though there was a narrow mindedness to the character's way of thinking when it came to religion, there was some justice in their feeling that way. After all there can be a lot of damage done with dogmatic thinking and as much as I'd like to think I'd have some compassion for those raised up in it I have to admit they'd likely piss me off too.Where the charaters shine though is in thier decency and their love and appreciation for nature. Of course there was also the deep appreciation of books and in the 1st edition of the copy I have thanks to my good friend who sent it to me, on the underside of the cover there was a list of some of the books that were preserved in the vault. I have no doubt this book will stay with me for a long time and I'm so very grateful to my good friend for having sent it to me.
—Sherry
As you already know, I love a good post-apocalyptic novel involving religious zealots, especially when it also involves rational, free-thinking bibliophiles on a mission to save books (and knowledge) for future generations. A Gift Upon the Shore is fantastically crafted story filled with friendships, hardships, philosophical discussions, drama, hope, and despair. I loved the epigrams M.K. Wren selected and saved a few as favorites. So thought-provoking and epic, this story just sucks you in and makes you weep for humanity!You MUST read it!
—Charity
