In Maria Takolander’s bleak and bold debut novel, the ground is rock hard and littered with the wreckage of civilisational collapse. When did the forests burn? Decades, possibly centuries, ago. The planet has warmed, the seas have risen, the topsoil has blown away. The epoch of mass extinctions is long past and no one nurtures fantasies about renewing the Earth.
Some folks live on-grid in cities, provided power and water by the dysfunctional remnants of the state. The central character of The End of Romance, a mother, lives off-grid with her son, scavenging, foraging, trapping and pillaging to stay alive. She is named just once – Marianna – and her son, the boy, never. Marianna is illiterate, barely verbal, exhausted and intent on survival.
