The End We Start from

by Megan Hunter

Finalist for the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize
Winner of the Editor's Choice Prize for Fiction

Longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, the #1 Indie Next Selection for November 2017, a Summer/Fall 2017 Indies Introduce Selection, a Fall 2017 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, an Amazon Best of the Month in Literature & Fiction

"The End We Start From is strange and powerful, and very apt for these uncertain times. I was moved, terrified, uplifted--sometimes all three at once. It takes skill to manage that, and Hunter has a poet's understanding of how to make each word count."--Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl With a Pearl Earring

Preempted by publishers around the world within days of the 2016 London Book Fair, The End We Start From heralds the arrival of Megan Hunter, a dazzling and unique literary talent. Hunter's debut is a searing original, a modern-day parable of rebirth and renewal, of maternal bonds, and the instinct to survive and thrive in the absence of all that's familiar.

As London is submerged below floodwaters, a woman gives birth to her first child, Z. Days later, she and her baby are forced to leave their home in search of safety. They head north through a newly dangerous country seeking refuge from place to place. The story traces fear and wonder as the baby grows, thriving and content against all the odds.

The End We Start From is an indelible and elemental first book--a lyrical vision of the strangeness and beauty of new motherhood, and a tale of endurance in the face of ungovernable change.

"In elegiac lines, Hunter tells a love story through the eyes of a new mother, who witnesses the death of an old life and the start of a new one...a perfect portrait of rebirth the final testament that time, and life, do go on, despite our best efforts."--Cotton Codinha, Elle Magazine

• ISBN13: 9780802126894
• Publish Date: 7 November 2017 (first published 18 May 2017)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 23 August 2024
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Black Cat
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 160
• Language: English

Reviews

[HekArtemis]

I had this in my feminist Fiction shelf, which means someone or some website or some list called this feminist. It is not. I don't appreciate that someone lied about it being such.

This book reads like disjointed, muddled, journal entries. Made by a woman who is poetically weird as heck. There are allusions to the Yellow Wallpaper too, so I feel like she might be a bit mad.

I think this could have made a good story if told normally. And I suppose it is still a good story as it is. But the writing style is super not for me. Also I just don't get how she could love that husband of hers, ugh. So not feminist.