Review: The Last

The Last by Hanna Jameson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Nadia once told me that she was kept awake at night by the idea that she would read about the end of the world on a phone notification. It wasn’t exactly Kennedy’s Sword of Damocles speech, but I remember that moment word for word.
“For me, three days ago, it happened over a complimentary breakfast.”

‘The Last’ by Hanna Jameson is an End of the World novel but a thoroughly 21st Century take on the Apocalypse. Conference attendees at a secluded countryside hotel south of Zurich watch their phone screens in horror as World War III erupts. The world’s capital cities fall one by one on social media. Online footage showing the vaporisation of London “didn’t seem as real as the headlines” seeming “too fast, and too quiet.” And then, almost worse than the end of the world, the internet goes down…
The story that follows is told in the diary of Dr. Jon Keller, an American lecturer, who chronicles his and his fellow guests’ reactions to the limited news they have, to the strange coloured clouds, the lack of rain, of sunlight, to the fear of radiation poisoning. Some cannot cope and commit suicide; others deal with practicalities, rationing fuel and resources, finding food, burying the dead. And then, when the water runs cloudy and tastes off, an exploration of the water tanks on the roof reveals a dead body, a murder that occurred in the days leading up to the nuclear war.
‘The Last’ is an exciting and original novel told in a very compelling and naturalistic way. The journal form is perfect for a narrative in which the protagonist literally has no knowledge of the state of the world outside the remote hotel location. This is not a big apocalyptic novel, it is a small scale story of survival of people coping with the unknown.

‘…No one panicked, we didn’t go all Lord of the Flies. It could be fine.’

Of course, as the survivors eventually have to venture outside the hotel, we suspect that it will not be fine. The rhythm of Keller’s journal entries changes as key events occur. We go from a series of short daily entries commenting on his depression and then boredom to longer, frantic passages bringing us up to date with major events which have happened in extended periods during which Keller has been away from his book.
I loved this novel. I loved the concept when I heard about it on ‘Two Crime Writer’s…’ podcast. I have never read Hanna Jameson before and, while I understand this book is something of a departure for her, I really like the way she writes and will have added her previous books to my TBR list.

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