Far North.

Theroux, Marcel (author).

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Makepeace Hatfield patrols the empty town of Evangeline in Siberia, the act a mere ritual in a broken world where civilization is a thing barely remembered. But two events—the rescue of a slave named Ping and the sighting of a plane—prompt Makepeace to leave a sustainable but bleak existence in search of the place where fixing and fueling a plane is still possible. The journey, which lasts years, leads Makepeace through a brutal frontier of suspicion, superstition, and slavery. The popularity of postapocalyptic books has given expression to fears plaguing our minds, and these books’ themes have evolved with the complicated times. In Far North, Theroux twines the mysteries of the apocalypse with those of Makepeace’s past and, in unraveling them, creates something that, while it lacks the devastating emotional impact of The Road (2006), may actually offer more food for thought through its protagonist’s paradoxes. Makepeace craves companionship yet distrusts people; hoards books but doesn’t read; finds beauty in the natural world yet believes humanity’s proudest accomplishments lie in the ruined cities. The book is occasionally repetitive, but its haunting meditations on annihilation—nature’s, humankind’s, a single human’s—give Far North a power of grief-stricken mourning that, barring apocalypse, won’t soon be forgotten.