I read Our Endless Numbered Days is about 48 hours. It didn't even get on my 'current reading list'! I read a great deal of it while waiting with my son at the Fracture Clinic - I was grateful to have had a book! This is the first novel by Claire Fuller and it is disturbing as well as unique.
Peggy is eight and lives with her famous pianist mother and her father, who is a Retreater. The book is set in the days when everyone thought the world would soon end. Peggy's father builds a bunker in their home and equips it with what they would need to survive. While her mother is away touring, Peggy's father takes her to live in the forest of a European country, eventually telling her that her mother is dead and that they are the only two people left. They live in a hut and eat squirrels and rabbits, mushrooms and fruits. The first winter they barely survive but by the next they have a vegetable garden. The story charts the years living in the cabin until Peggy realises they are not alone. She meets a man called Reuben.
By the time Peggy escapes from the forest, after a dramatic scene, it is eight years later and now she has to adjust to the world, meet a brother she didn't know existed and try to explain her life in the forest.
It was, as I said, a disturbing story. I didn't really like the mother. She seemed to wrapped up in her own life. the father was weird. Before he and Peggy went off, he'd spent time teaching her to pack all her stuff in a rucksack for 'doom day' and timing her, and then camping out in the garden, catching squirrels, skinning and cooking them. The father did not bother that her hair was a mess and that neither had washed. It was all prep work for the real thing. And then after a phone call from his wife he drags Peggy off, filling her head with lies.
Certainly this was a unique story, partly brought about by the author's interest in feral children and a story she read (there is a great interview at the back of the book). Nicely done and leaves you wondering.
Peggy is eight and lives with her famous pianist mother and her father, who is a Retreater. The book is set in the days when everyone thought the world would soon end. Peggy's father builds a bunker in their home and equips it with what they would need to survive. While her mother is away touring, Peggy's father takes her to live in the forest of a European country, eventually telling her that her mother is dead and that they are the only two people left. They live in a hut and eat squirrels and rabbits, mushrooms and fruits. The first winter they barely survive but by the next they have a vegetable garden. The story charts the years living in the cabin until Peggy realises they are not alone. She meets a man called Reuben.
By the time Peggy escapes from the forest, after a dramatic scene, it is eight years later and now she has to adjust to the world, meet a brother she didn't know existed and try to explain her life in the forest.
It was, as I said, a disturbing story. I didn't really like the mother. She seemed to wrapped up in her own life. the father was weird. Before he and Peggy went off, he'd spent time teaching her to pack all her stuff in a rucksack for 'doom day' and timing her, and then camping out in the garden, catching squirrels, skinning and cooking them. The father did not bother that her hair was a mess and that neither had washed. It was all prep work for the real thing. And then after a phone call from his wife he drags Peggy off, filling her head with lies.
Certainly this was a unique story, partly brought about by the author's interest in feral children and a story she read (there is a great interview at the back of the book). Nicely done and leaves you wondering.
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