The world ends not with a bang but with a whimper for the inhabitants of the remote, bleak island of Black Crag in The Horses, New Zealand-born author Janina Matthewson’s latest engrossing, hugely readable novel. The island – its location remaining wilfully vague and unspecified – is cut off from some unnamed catastrophe on the mainland virtually overnight. Radios are just a buzz of static, phones have stopped working, in the distance, planes drop out of the sky, and a disquieting haze of green seems to be drifting across the horizon towards the island. But life goes on for the little community on Black Crag as it tries to come to terms with an apocalypse it can’t understand and, with supplies from the mainland now a thing of the past, they have to think about surviving the upcoming winter and planning for the years ahead…
It’s bad timing for teenager Sarah, who is living with her mothers and her younger brother Elliot. She had been about to leave the island and start a new life at university on the mainland. But all that’s just a lost dream now and she has to battle against her disappointment and her frustration at having the life and future she craved taken away from her by some dreadful quirk of humanity. The Horses is an intimate and sensitive look at the end of the world, a book very much in the ‘cosy catastrophe’ genre of apocalypse fiction characterised decades ago in the works of John Wyndham and John Christopher/Sam Youd. There’s no chaos, carnage and panic here, no explosions, no outbursts of violence – just a small group of worried people facing an uncertain future with a commendable stoicism. Sarah is largely our lead figure, and we follow her trials and tribulations as she ponders a future with no future on Black Crag, but her life is punctuated by moments of human drama as her best friend Ana unexpectedly falls pregnant and she forms an attachment to charismatic local lad Nathaniel. Elsewhere, island hotheads plan to travel to the mainland to find out exactly what disaster has befallen Mankind despite the fact that a couple of earlier expeditions were never seen again. But the island’s future seems cold and tough… until the horses appear…
The Horses is a beautiful, lyrical piece of work defined by its characters living their lives against the constant background of the cataclysm that has apparently silenced the whole world. Life goes on, but thoughts of the disaster are never far from anyone’s minds, and we’re left to imagine what might have happened; in some ways, it’s a shame that Matthewson decides to tease us with a late-stage ‘flashback’ to the day of the disaster as although it doesn’t explain exactly what happened it takes us to a different location on the mainland and threatens to upset the gentle equilibrium of the book by delivering an unnecessary action sequence. It’s a minor quibble, though. You’ll enjoy spending time with and making the acquaintance of these likeable, relatable characters as their lives carry on in the face of the greatest adversity of all. The Horses isn’t the stuff of blockbuster cinema, but it’s got a three-part BBC drama written all over it. But for now, The Horses is a charming book full of warmth, optimism and genuine humanity.
