Water in the Desert, Fire in the Night by Gethan Dick (Blog tour post)

 

Info about the book

‘Original and lyrical...unlike anything I’ve read in recent memory’ JOHNY PITTS, presenter of R4’s ‘Open Book’ and author of Afropean

‘Vast, generous, funny, resistant and alive’ VALÉRIE MANTEAU, novelist and winner of the Prix Renaudot.

‘An original and vital perspective on much more than how a world ends: on how it begins' - OANA ARISTIDE, author of Under the Blue

Gethan Dick’s stunning debut is a thought-provoking post-apocalyptic novel, Fizzing with energy, anger, fear and ultimately hope.  Water in the Desert Fire in the Night will appeal to fans of Claire Kilroy, Megan Hunter and Cormac McCarthy.  

Here is a novel about hope, wolves, companionship and resilience, hunger and gold. It’s about an underachieving millennial, a retired midwife and a charismatic Dubliner who set out from London after the end of the world to cycle to a sanctuary in the southern Alps.  It’s about packing light and choosing the right companions and trousers: What’s worth knowing, what’s worth living and holding on to your sense of humour in moments big and small. It’s about the fact that the world ends all the time. It’s about what to do next!

About the Author

Gethan Dick was born in Belfast and grew up mostly in the west of Ireland. In 2001 she moved to London to study at Goldsmiths, and also Camberwell College of Art. In 2011, she migrated to Marseille, France, and has lived there since. She has performed at Latitude, Secret Garden Party and Green Man, and her artworks have been supported and exhibited by such internationally renowned institutions as: Creative Europe (EU); Fondation Van Gogh, MAC, FRAC-Sud (Fr); Barbican, ICA, Wellcome Trust (UK); Haus der Kulturen der Welt (De); Manifesta (Nl); Eyebeam (US) and the Havana Biennial (Cu). In the summer of 2024 she participates in the climax to the two-year Ulysses European Odyssey at the YES Festival in Derry.

My thoughts

My thanks to Helen Richardson and Tramp Press for the opportunity to take part in the Blog tour of this book. 

I am around half way through the book and had hoped to finish it, so that I could do a proper review.

However, life had other plans for me!

What I have read of the story so far, I have enjoyed as I do enjoy books set in the future like this one is.  It makes you think what life would be like living in a post apocalyptic era and how you would cope if you survived an apocalypse. 

I have included two quotes below that resonated with me.

Quote 1

'It’s so fucking pathetic, the way we’re made. We think we are able to imagine what it’s like to be somebody else, to go through something that somebody else is going through, but we aren’t. Nothing touches us really until it becomes something that’s happening to us. If you were really able to imagine the horrors that people go through in their lives you would never be able to move again.'

My thoughts about the quote: I often wonder what life is like for other people, this quote resonated with me.  

Quote 2

 'Anyway, so we lost the overview. First we lost it a bit and people tribalised. The rich blamed the left, the left blamed the right, the right blamed the others, America blamed China, China blamed Europe, Europe blamed Russia, the godly blamed the godless, the godless blamed the godly, and so on and so on. But when things really went to bits we completely lost the overview. We didn’t even know who was blaming who anymore. It is hard to remember now what it felt like to think we knew what was happening: that a nation had chosen this or that, that a building we’d never seen had been blown up, that somebody we’d never met had died. It’s hard to understand why we thought any of it was important.          There were always so many people saying it was all lies any-way, I don’t know how anyone reporting on stuff managed to keep themselves motivated – except the ones who were lying, who must’ve just been excited at how well their lies were working. But then when the communications started going down, and when the electricity didn’t come back on, there was no more overview. Your understanding of the world shrank down to what you were actually living, along with the bits and pieces that you could glean from the other alive people that you came across.'

My thoughts about the quote: This is so true, it's so easy to blame others for what is happening.  No one whether individual or a Country likes to accept the blame and suffer the consequences, they prefer to pass the blame on & on & on.

I look forward to finishing the story and sharing my review of it on my blog in due course.