A Gift Upon the Shore
A Gift Upon the Shore is a novel by M. K. Wren.
Reviews
This post-apocalypse novel is told from the perspective of Mary Hope, who lived through plagues, roving murderous bandits, and finally nuclear war in the waning days of the "golden age" -- a time not too far from the present. The novel alternates between Mary retelling the story of those years, and living through a current struggle against ignorance, fear, and hatred.
Mary and her close friend Rachel (really, just a friend!) lived far enough out in the woods to avoid the bandits, the fires, and the nuclear holocaust. They survived the nuclear winter and the years afterwards, unsure if any other humans had survived at all. They determined to make a gift to the future, to provide some light through a coming dark age, by preserving as many books as they could. Eventually they do encounter other people -- right-wing Christians, fundamentalist, patriarchal, and afraid of knowledge, science, and anything that isn't Biblical truth.
An engrossing novel, sad as are all stories that still seem so frighteningly possible. The protagonists are strong, sensible women. My one quibble is the unquestioned heterosexism. At one point in the novel Mary resigns herself to lifelong celibacy -- and I thought, well, why? You've got a perfectly good human being right there with you. To be sure, some people in real life would never consider being lovers with another person of the same sex -- deeply entrenched & unconscious homophobia would never allow it to cross their minds. But that doesn't quite fit in with what I saw of the characters Mary and Rachel, who were strong, independent women, not children, not bound by religious convictions. So it seemed like an omission ... but then Mary in a confrontation with a religious zealot reacts quite indignantly to the mere hint that the two women were more than friends. Given how much the story shows people accommodating -- making do with what they can, not just in a survivalist sense, but in an emotional sense (falling in love with those available, living in communities and in ways that otherwise would have been completely repugnant) -- this omission seems all the more glaring.
So I'm not sure what was going on -- possibly the author structured the book such that the two women were not lovers, to avoid a "Little Foxes" scenario, or other complications -- but no. I think, really, that the author just had a moment of heterosexist blindness. Oh well. It was still well written, fascinating, scary and sad, and reminds us of how evil, crazy, courageous, strong, and visionary humans can be.
Editions
- 1990: Ballantine, New York (ISBN 0-345-36341-8)
Further reading
- FeministSF Book Discussion Group (Oct. 2003)