The Things That Keep Us Here-Carla Buckley

The Things That Keep Us Here
Carla Buckley
Delacorte, Feb 2010, $25.00
ISBN: 9780440245094

Peter and Ann Brooks separate after he informs her he does not love her. A year later single mom Ann works and raises their two daughters. She learns that the virulent form of H5N1 virus has reached phase five, leading to the closing of all schools by the feds. Accompanied by her neighbor Ann goes to the store fearing quarantine so she stocks up on necessities. When Ann returns home, she finds her estranged husband and his co-worker Shazia there.

Ann invites them in to stay for now but in separate beds. The Feds declare the anticipated quarantine in which everyone is to remain indoors. Over time as the pandemic spreads, the people inside the Brooks’ home become claustrophobic; food supplies dwindle as she bought for herself and two youngsters and not two additional adults; electricity goes out during a storm; and firewood is low. Ann’s best friend is dying from the virus so leaves her son in front of Ann’s house. She fears bringing the child inside as the disease is probably incubating inside him, but Peter overrules her. Peter also takes care of a stray dog whose owner died, but Ann resents his using their dwindling food he gives to the child and canine. Everyone remains in danger unless a vaccine is manufactured as half the population is dead, others are dying, and sustenance supplies are becoming scarce.

The Brooks family trials, tribulations and triumphs serve as a microcosm of what is faced by other people throughout the world. Some become heroic helping the needy; others try to protect their immediate loved ones; and finally those exist who commit legal and moral crimes. Ann owns this apocalyptic thriller as she feels strongly that her kids come before others in an imploding world gone mad; the opposite of Peter. In her debut, Carla Buckley provides a thought-provoking thriller that asks her readers who would they become if civilization somewhat vanished.

Harriet Klausner