There are a lot of post-apocalyptic books out there. You know the drill: a mysterious happening brings civilisation to its knees. People living in the aftermath scrabble around living on tinned food. Our protagonist is the one who gets to the heart of what happens and (in the more optimistic ones) is able to fix it. See The Feed, Station Eleven and The Space Between The Stars – all of which are really excellent examples of the genre.
Where Peng Shepherd‘s The Book of M (review copy from Harper Voyager) differs is that the cause of the apocalypse is not a mysterious virus or act of terrorism. This is a fantasy take on the apocalypse, rather than a science fictional one. Starting in India, people start losing their shadows. And the shadowless start to gain the ability to change reality, but at the price of losing their memories. As the problem begins to spread, society starts to break down.
Our protagonists are Max and Ory. They were at the wedding of two friends in a remote location when the Forgetting starts to hit the USA. Slowly the community at the wedding hotel starts to disperse, until only Max and Ory are left. Max loses her shadow, and her husband Ory looks after her, in the knowledge that eventually she will forget even him. Unable to bear it, Max eventually leaves, following mysterious graffiti and rumours that someone in the deep South may hold a cure for the Forgetting.
Unfortunately, The Book of M fails to add anything fresh to the post-apocalyptic genre beyond its new, fantastical premise. The novel dwells on the importance of memories in how they shape and form the essence of a person. But the Forgetting is never adequately explained and – although the story is competently told and Shepherd writes with a beautiful prose style – the novel lacks some of the deep insight into the human condition and how we cope with chaos and crisis that other sister books offer.
Goodreads rating: 2*
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