On the Beach

Written in 1957, the novel starts some months after a nuclear war that wiped out all life in the Northern Hemisphere. The story takes place in Australia during the last months before the radiation reaches the country and wipes out all life. As they wait for the radiation to reach them in the vicinity of Melbourne, the three main protagonists of the story - tied together as key members of the crew of the last operational submarine - find their own way to deal with the reality of the situation.

Though the overall the theme is very depressing - after all death for everybody is to be expected from the outset - I found the book in many ways uplifting. As it is said somewhere in the book, this outcome is really the same for all of us. The only difference here is in the knowing of the when and how. How we deal with life in the meantime is what counts. The book works well on both levels, telling the story of how the society as a whole deals with the reality of the coming end and the different ways individuals adopt to deal with it. I very much liked the fact that the book left out the immediate aftermath of the war where reactions would assuredly have been more violent, but rather looked at the last months, where people had already learned to deal with the new reality.