THE PESTHOUSE
Jim Crace
Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
Fiction
ISBN-10: 0385520751
ISBN-13: 9780385520751

Question: How many reviewers can compare or reference "inevitable comparisons" of Jim Crace's THE PESTHOUSE to Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD?

Answer: Every single reviewer of THE PESTHOUSE, that's how many.

And this isn't fair, because while both books deal with a post-apocalyptic America, that is where the similarities end. Where McCarthy writes a bleak fable, Crace pens a sort of pilgrim's progress-cum-love story. There is bleakness aplenty, but Crace's intentions are different from McCarthy's.

Oh, wait. I'm comparing the books. See? It's hard not to, since both writers (one American, one British) both envision a future United States that looks far worse than anything P.D. James did in THE CHILDREN OF MEN. In THE PESTHOUSE, the reader is dropped into an America that has regressed to a sort of superstitious proto-agrarian society (metal is used when absolutely necessary, such as in carts, but is looked at askance for other uses, when wood, clay and stone can work just as well).

The reader is also dropped into the unfortunate Ferrytown, which is about to be wiped out (even the flies) by a fast-moving and fast-acting plague. The only survivor is Margaret, whose earlier strain of what townspeople call "the flux" resulted in her being shorn of all hair as a warning and left, alone and desperately ill, in a small "pesthouse" away from her family. The remaining population of the country is slowly but surely moving eastward in order to try to catch boats to Europe. When a young man named Franklin becomes separated from his brother during their own journey, he stumbles onto the hut and Margaret. Thus begins their odd pairing that Crace quietly and sympathetically moves to a romantic and even heroic turn.

Naturally this is a bleak book, so the course of Franklin and Margaret's love cannot run smoothly. After Franklin (despite a bum knee) manages to cart Margaret and all of the possessions he can cadge from her deceased family's home across a river (it's truly lovely when he remembers to bring a pot of "kitchen mint" along), he is captured by post-apocalyptic highwaymen and the two are separated for a long while. Margaret's captors, the "Finger Baptists," are some of the creepiest fictional cult villains to come along in a while. Shunning metal completely, they have allowed their hands to wither so that they never touch the evil stuff.

I can't help but compare THE PESTHOUSE to THE ROAD one last time. When I learned of Franklin and Margaret's fate, I had a sense of hope that never enters McCarthy's world. In other words, Crace's intentions are different from McCarthy's. Don't read one of these novels and believe you've read them both.

   --- Reviewed by Bethanne Kelly Patrick

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