Things That Keep Us Here - Softcover

Carla Buckley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1409117332 ISBN 13: 9781409117339

Publisher: Orion, 2011

Synopsis

Millions are dead. Fear and panic have gripped the nation. An engrossing and emotionally gripping story of one family whose limits are tested to the extreme.It began with a dead bird. Then state-wide school closure. Before long, the whole town is in lockdown and the Brooks family are quarantined in their own home - with a faceless enemy on their doorstep.They must cope as best they can, battling hunger, cold and boredom. But as the threat inches closer, and neighbour turns against neighbour, single mother Ann doesn't know who she can trust - including those taking refuge in her house.With no end in sight, Ann knows that if she is to protect her daughters from untold danger, she must make impossible decisions in order to survive...

About this title

Review

Amazon Exclusive: Carla Buckley on The Things That Keep Us Here

The old black and white photographs are haunting.

Rows upon rows of bleak white cots spreading out to the horizon, filled with soldiers suffering not from war injuries, but the effects of a terrible new disease which mankind had never seen before. Many of these young men would die, their lungs swelling with fluid until they choked to death. Back in their hometowns, their family members waged the same helpless battle. Doctors could only treat the symptoms and hope they themselves didn’t fall victim. Governments rushed to impose some sort of order, but only those cities that completely closed their borders suffered fewer casualties. In all, there were three waves of illness, spanning three years and reaching into every corner of the world, and when it had subsided, twenty percent of the world population was gone. The very young and the old were spared; an entire generation had been wiped away with one sweeping blow. The culprit? The flu.

Almost a hundred years have passed since the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918. But despite tremendous medical advances, and our increased understanding of what a virus is and how it spreads, people are almost as vulnerable today as they were back then. Perhaps even more so, given air travel and how small the world has become. There is no cure. We can see the monster, but we can’t stop it.

In 2006, having just moved to a new hometown with my young children, I was particularly susceptible to terrifying reports that the world was overdue for another flu pandemic. This time, it was H5N1, the so-called “bird flu,” that seemed on the verge of mutating into a contagious form, and it had a mortality rate of fifty percent. Half the world? All I could think of were those narrow white cots, stretching out to eternity.

The Things That Keep Us Here is a work of fiction, based on scientific fact, that asks what the world might look like if the very worst happened and a lethal virus raged uncontrolled. It is written from the intimate perspective of one family in middle America, and most of the action takes place within their home. Would people come together or stand apart? How far would they go to save themselves and their loved ones? In the end, The Things That Keep Us Here is less about the power of a virus to reduce humanity to a shadow, and more about the power of the human spirit to remain untouched.

What images would survive from a modern pandemic, and who would be looking at them, a hundred years later? --Carla Buckley

(Photo © Brian Killian)

About the Author

Carla Buckley was born in Washington, D.C. She has worked as an assistant press secretary for a U.S. senator, an analyst with the Smithsonian Institution, and a technical writer for a defense contractor. She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with her husband, an environmental scientist, and their three children. She has been nominated for a Thriller Award as a Best First novel and the Ohioana Book Award for fiction.

About this edition

• Publisher: Orion
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1409117332
• ISBN 13: 9781409117339
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 474