On The Beach (1957)

By Nevil Shute

312pp, Fiction

Notes

2020-07-31

Neville Shute’s On the Beach is really great; cleanly, unfussily told in that timeless mid-late 20th century style, a time when engineers could still become great novelists. It follows a group of characters in and around Melbourne dealing with their impending demise as a poisonous nuclear cloud creeps south over many months, the result of some unknown conflagration in the northern hemisphere. How people might delude themselves into leading lives of meaning in such situation is perfectly observed and made for resonant reading during [gestures at the world in general]. Tears were shed.

For me it felt like I was fitting in a keystone in my Australian post apocalyptic fiction reading; it’s echos can be heard in everything from Mad Max to the children’s literature of Victor Kelleher to Ridley Walker. So yes, recommended!