The Pesthouse by Jim Crace

This book has been written before and written better. Anyone who was sucked into Cormac McCarthy's dank, dystopian trip through post-apocalyptic America in The Road will recognise the territory covered in The Pesthouse. The America envisioned by Crace has been ravaged by a plague, with society and history the first casualties. The great exploration that gave birth to America, settlers and explorers coming from across the sea and travelling inland from east to west, is reversed: the displaced seek escape, their hopes pinned on rumours of ships setting sail to a safer place.

If details of what brought a superpower to its knees sound sketchy, the ideology that hums beneath the surface of the novel is all too clear; America is committing suicide, it just doesn't know it yet. Blame big business, blame Bush. But unless the country changes its ways, Crace is saying, the United States will get a taste of the dark ages.

Lest the moral of the story get you down (or alienate the lucrative American market) there's a love story to divert the attention. As our hero Franklin journeys forth, he encounters Margaret, amongst the cadavers, quarantined in the pesthouse, her head shaved and eyelashes plucked out to combat the plague. Romance and adventure entwine, as the two cling together for 250 pages until a happy ending implausibly kicks in.

As a writer Crace deserves attention. His prose is simple but lyrical, with flashes of tenderness and incandescence. But this is not his best novel. It is less than Crace has proved himself capable of.