The Drought - post IV

The book jumps on again and it has been a decade since the drought began. Ransom is holed up with his ex wife and in conflict with the main camp of survivors. He knows that staying by the sea is a doomed enterprise and he manages to reassemble the original party and head back the 100 miles to the city.

On the way they are greeted with fires, destruction and dust. As they get closer the small cast of freakish characters that Ballard had left in the town are still there fighting and squabbling over water.

Ransom seems happy to slide into an existence of doing nothing but waiting for the end as the days and weeks drift by. Even when the people he is staying with start to fight with themselves he seems unable to take decisive action.

It is only close to presumably the end, with all water gone, that he decides to leave, walk off and head out on his own. It is at that point of course at the moment when he faces the biggest challenge of finding himself, or at least rediscovering himself, that the drought ends.

A review will follow soon…