Z for Zachariah

Robert C. O'Brian's novel Z for Zachariah is about Ann Burden, a weak young woman who still manages to survive (maybe). She thinks she is the only survivor of a devastating nuclear war, which lasted a week and completely destroyed the United States. At the start of the novel, Ann has been alone for a year, her family having left her a year ago to look for other survivors, and just never returning. She has settled into her home in the valley, which for some reason has survived and flourished, when all around her the land has been poisoned. Then John Loomis appears from the dead world in a plastic suit that protects him from the radiation and nerve gas, he enters her valley and starts examining everything. Ann is cautious and hides herself and all evidence that she is living in the valley, but when John get radiation (or nerve) poisoning from a stream in the valley, Ann makes herself known to help nurse him back to health. Things go downhill from there.

I know Ann is young, but the subservience of Ann makes me sick. I applauded her for taking care of John while he was sick, but after he tried to RAPE her, SHE STILL CONTINUES TO COLLECT FOOD AND WATER FOR HIM? At that point she knew he was able to care for himself, and yet she continued to fetch and carry for him. This man escalates his psychological abuse by at first tying up and using her companion dog to try to find where she is hiding in the valley, than taking the tractor keys, so she is unable to do ALL the farm work that is feeding them, and finally locking her out of the general store so she is unable to get the supplies she needed. It is only after he tries to hobble her, by shooting her in the leg that she thinks of getting away from John. Can anyone say battered woman syndrome?

In the end, Ann does get away from him, but she is forced to leave her safe valley to do so. That she has hope of finding another valley is little comfort to me as a woman. She gives up everything to get away from an abusive man, leaving with only the radiation suit and some supplies. Even though she escapes I fail to see it as a victory. John the domineering, abuser ends up with the security of the valley and Ann ends up looking for another home, and other people in the desolation of the outside world.

This novel is not for children. I would never in a million years allow my 13 year old girl to read this book. The message it gives young girls is, quite frankly, abhorrent. I as an adult wish I had not read it!