EPT![[image loading]](http://media.npr.org/programs/wesun/features/2006/sep/town200.jpg)
The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen
Some authors have all the luck.
The Last Town on Earth centers on a fictional town in the Pacific Northwest that is besieged by the apocalyptic Spanish Influenza of 1918 and, to add insult to injury, World War 1.
With Swine Flu hysteria only just past and questions of a complex American war still on our minds, it's hard to imagine a more timely topic.
The town, Commonwealth, decides to quarantine itself in hopes of avoiding off the unimaginable sickness that has been ravaging much of the surrounding country and, in fact, the entire world: between 50 and 100 million people died during the pandemic.
I bought this book on a recommendation after I'd mentioned enjoying Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" - the apocalyptic themes and examinations of family are just a couple of the similarities between the two novels.
But where McCarthy's book is more consistently black, this book is a much lighter tone of gray. Perhaps it is the fact that it is set in a town of 500 facing an epidemic and not a lonesome world already devastated and barren. Perhaps it is the youth of the protagonist. Whatever makes the novel relatively lighter, it works well.
While the novel may not be as consistently devastating as The Road, it is moving in its own right. The exploration of morality and self-interest which takes place on nearly every page is fascinating and it is impossible to not place yourself in the shoes of one of the many complex characters present throughout.
The book had minor inconsistencies in mood which I did not initially take to. However, at the close of the book I came to appreciate each part. I realize now it is all a set up - not for a wacky twist ending or a massive cliffhanger, but for the unmistakeably grayness and sense of wonder the novel leaves in you once you've finished.
Plus, it's not a thick read at all. I breezed through it with no great effort.
8/10
