''A Gift Upon the Shore'' is a

post-apocalyptic fiction Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astro ...

novel by American author M. K. Wren and published by

Ballantine Books Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1998 and remains ...

in 1990. The story follows two women, an artist and a writer, who survive pandemic, the collapse of civilization, and a deadly nuclear winter.

Plot summary

Set in the near future, A Gift traces the first generations to survive nuclear war and its aftermath. Writer Mary Hope and painter Rachel Morrow scratch out a meager existence on a farm called Amarna on the Oregon coast. They are determined to collect and preserve for a new civilization all the great books of western culture. Farther down the coast lives the Arkites, a fundamentalist group that denies all knowledge not found in the Bible. After a plague strikes the Arkites Mary agrees to take in a few survivors on the condition that she be allowed to educate the children as she sees fit.

Reception

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

'' called the novel "unsparing but ultimately hopeful...Wren's post-nuclear world rings true, as do her compelling depictions of the subsistence-level daily life--the triumphs, the losses and the desperation." ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'' dubbed the novel as "Beautifully realized, with solid characters, but unoriginal, obvious, implausible, obtrusively symbolic, and far too slow in the development: more admirable than practical." The ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' commented: "This cautionary novel is scarier than anything by

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...

Clive Barker Clive Barker (born 5 October 1952) is an English novelist, playwright, author, film director, and visual artist who came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories, the ''Books of Blood'', which established him as a leading h ...

...Wren’s writing is clear and concise for the most part, though bordering on the mystic when it comes to her descriptions of the woods, and especially the ocean in its many moods."

References

1990 novels Post-apocalyptic novels Ballantine Books books {{1990s-specf-novel-stub