What happens when the greenness goes

Amanda Craig applauds a tale of environmental and social collapse

develop into a novel of increasing psychological suspense. The Well taps into a new vein of apocalyptic fiction written by women – from Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games to Sarah Perry’s After Me Comes the Flood – as well as bringing to mind the lyrical nature writing of Robert Macfarlane’s Landmarks. As in John Christopher’s original classic, The Death of Grass (1956), these books all ask us to see what is precious and unique about our country, and to imagine its greenness gone, lost in arid conflict. For whatever the source of its water, TheWell is a genuine paradise, or oasis, and before long the couple are dealing not only with envious locals and government bureaucracy bent on trying to share their abundant resources, but also a group of nuns calling themselves Sisters of the Rose of Jericho. (This is a real plant, which looks dead, but springs into life on contact with water.) In their female-focused version of Christianity, Ruth falls, improbably, under the spell of the sinister but charismatic Sister Amelia. Finally, the use of water as a metaphor for both love and death reaches its longdelayed climax. The novel’s flaw, forgivable as it is otherwise so good, is that is does not sufficiently extend the personal into the public sphere. The drought is partly a symbol for the recession, and uses recent real-life weather to pleasing effect, but one longs to know more about the world outside this sad family. That said, its story and narrative voice will put many readers under a deliciously shivery spell.