The Last Murder at the End of the World

In The Last Murder at the End of the World, Turton draws on the popular premise of surviving in a postapocalyptic setting. By setting his murder mystery 90 years after a deadly fog killed most of the world’s population, Turton explores how people might conceptualize a new world without repeating the mistakes of the past. Postapocalyptic narratives have maintained popularity from the mid-20th century onward because they tap into some of society’s deepest fantasies and anxieties in the technological age. Postapocalyptic narratives do not have to be science fiction: The apocalyptic catastrophe can have natural, supernatural, and manmade causes. Natural disasters, war, technological uprisings, and alien invasion are all possible scenarios that clear the ground for humans—or another race of beings—to start a new civilization.

Postapocalyptic narratives explore human nature by showing how people might behave in extreme scenarios with few resources and limited knowledge of their situation. They raise moral and ethical questions, such as determining the criteria for who lives and dies or whether to share resources with or fight off newcomers. Such questions are central to The Road (2006), a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy. In the novel, a father and his young son navigate a bleak, postapocalyptic landscape on foot to find a safe haven. Rather than dwelling on the event that caused the catastrophe, the novel focuses on the father’s desire to help the son survive, even at his own cost. Similarly, Turton shows how the preserved community on Niema’s island wrestle with the fact that they must rebuild society with the small number of resources available to them, knowing that humanity loves to resort to violence.

Often, postapocalyptic narratives are dystopian, presenting a cynical view of humanity’s ability to preserve its highest values in the face of chaos. George Orwell’s 1949 novel 1984 is one of the first dystopian novels that greatly influenced the genre. The novel presents a grim scenario of a totalitarian state in which people have no privacy or freedom. Novels like 1984 are often social or political allegories that speak to issues of the present day. In 1949, when the novel was written, the West feared the rise of the Soviet Union. The novel is a warning about what can happen when a society does not protect democracy and freedom of speech. In The Murder at the End of the World, Emory is cynical about the elders’ power over the island and their willingness to sacrifice others for their experiments.

In addition to addressing deep questions of morality, postapocalyptic narratives can be escapist. These stories removes the complexities of the modern world and simplify life down to its basics. Films like Mad Max Fury Road (2015) focus on action and adventure, immersing viewers in the sensory experience of the postapocalyptic world while addressing socially relevant themes like feminism. The Murder at the End of the World presents a mystery plot with twists and turns, challenging readers to solve it along with Emory.

The interest of postapocalyptic survival highlights society’s fascination with the possibility of life existing after the end of the world, as well as the hope that humanity will always find a way to survive even in absolute destruction.