Through Darkest America
First edition, 1987
Through Darkest America (1986) is a post-nuclear war novel set in a regressed America so far removed from its former civilization that human beings have been bred as livestock. The horror of the premise unfolds slowly and deliberately in the novel's opening pages. With all the texture of 19th-century rural life, a boy named Howie accompanies his family to a country fair, the rhythms of farm and river and market town feeling entirely familiar. It takes time to register that the "stock" being bought, sold, fattened, gelded, and slaughtered are people. Barrett never announces this. He simply lets the reader arrive at the understanding the way Howie himself does, with a creeping, sickening recognition.
The novel follows Howie through adolescence and into a brutal civil war that tears apart what remains of post-collapse America. It is a coming-of-age story in the most savage sense, the loss of innocence set against a backdrop of institutionalized atrocity. Barrett's prose is plain and deceptively simple, written close to Howie's limited perspective, which makes the horror that much more effective.
Published by Congdon & Weed under their "Isaac Asimov Presents" imprint, which Asimov used to champion science fiction titles he personally selected. A sequel, Dawn's Uncertain Light, followed in 1989.
First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, black cloth boards with gilt lettering on spine. New York: Congdon and Weed, 1987. ISBN: 0865531846. #11474.
Near fine in near fine dust jacket.
The novel follows Howie through adolescence and into a brutal civil war that tears apart what remains of post-collapse America. It is a coming-of-age story in the most savage sense, the loss of innocence set against a backdrop of institutionalized atrocity. Barrett's prose is plain and deceptively simple, written close to Howie's limited perspective, which makes the horror that much more effective.
Published by Congdon & Weed under their "Isaac Asimov Presents" imprint, which Asimov used to champion science fiction titles he personally selected. A sequel, Dawn's Uncertain Light, followed in 1989.
First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, black cloth boards with gilt lettering on spine. New York: Congdon and Weed, 1987. ISBN: 0865531846. #11474.
Near fine in near fine dust jacket.