Staff Pick
The second in Lunde’s proposed tetralogy of climate novels, The End of the Ocean alternates between Signe, a Norwegian activist who has spent her life protesting environmental destruction and corporate greed, and David, a single father living some 22 years later in a French refugee camp, trying to flee the global drought that destroyed his city. This sobering novel — which will leave you frantically plotting routes to the “water countries” — is not without hope, even if that hope is often futile. Signe, and David and his daughter Lou after her, put their energies into the people they love; love motivates their moments of strength and weakness, and keeps them focused on the future, even when nostalgia beckons. The End of the Ocean is not naïve enough to suggest that love is the answer to climate catastrophe, but it demonstrates, in an engaging story that’s hard to put down, how even little gestures of acknowledgement between small groups of people can blossom, unexpectedly, into sustenance for unknown and untold others. Recommended By Rhianna W., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
From the author of the number-one international bestseller The History of Bees, a captivating story of the power of nature and the human spirit that explores the threat of a devastating worldwide drought, witnessed through the lives of a father, a daughter, and a woman who will risk her life to save the future.
In 2019, seventy-year-old Signe sets sail alone on a hazardous voyage across the ocean in a sailboat. On board, a cargo that can change lives. Signe is haunted by memories of the love of her life, whom she'll meet again soon.
In 2041, David and his young daughter, Lou, flee from a drought-stricken Southern Europe that has been ravaged by thirst and war. Separated from the rest of their family and desperate to find them, they discover an ancient sailboat in a dried-out garden, miles away from the nearest shore. Signe's sailboat.
As David and Lou discover Signe's personal effects, her long ago journey becomes inexorably linked to their own.
An evocative tale of the search for love and connection, The End of the Ocean is a profoundly moving father daughter story of survival and a clarion call for climate action.