The Road to Winter

Mark Smith

Text Publishing

Otago Daily Times, August 8th 2016

Australian author Mark Smith’s debut novel tells beautiful and intimate story that belies the bleak future in which it is set. It is is told through the eyes of sixteen-year-old Finn Morrison, the only person from his isolated coastal community to have survived waves of epidemic illness and violence that has killed most of Australia’s population.

Thanks to his father’s foresight, he has enough food and fuel stockpiled to satisfy his basic needs for the meantime, and his life has settled into a familiar routine; hunting, fishing and surfing – an activity keeps him in touch with his old life and, by his own admission, sane. But the only human contact he has had in the two years is with an elderly man in the neighbouring valley, so when a terrified Afghani girl appears in the town, closely followed by a violent gang of men who control the land to the north of the settlement, he responds instinctively to protect her.

It is not until they reach the relative safety of his home that Finn has time to fully consider the ramifications of his actions; although the girl, Rose, who is ill and pregnant, is not herself a threat, by rescuing her he is very real danger of being discovered himself. Her presence takes the edge off his loneliness, however, and after she describes her life growing up as a refugee and her treatment by the men now chasing her, he feels compelled to make up for all the bad things that have happened to her. So when she begs him to find her sister, from whom she became separated during their escape, he embarks on a second rescue mission, even though it forces him into direct conflict with her pursuers.

Although the basic plot elements of The Road to Winter are by no means new, what makes this novel stand out from the multitude of dystopias crowding the shelves is Finn’s narrative voice. Although young, he neither naïve nor cynical and, despite what he has lived through, retains a resourceful optimism and kindness that I found immensely appealing.

We get glimpses of the plague and its aftermath but no more than necessary to set the scene. Smith also draws attention to important contemporary issues (Finn mentions how winters are growing briefer and milder due to climate change, and learns through Rose how asylum seekers are forced into indentured labour, a policy euphemistically termed ‘refugee reassignment’), but he does so with a similarly light touch.

 Because of this focus on the characters at the story’s heart we become deeply invested in their welfare, and the main tension in novel comes not from horrific details but from our desire to see them succeed. 

Like the best YA fiction, The Road to Winter is sure to appeal just as much to an adult audience, and I can easily see being discussed as passionately by a local book club as a high-school English class. It is already being compared to John Marsden bestselling Tomorrow series, in my opinion justly so.

https://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/books/quality-debut-novel-young-adults