After: An Anatomy of Fracture (2024) by Drew Starling

The world as we know it has ceased to exist. It has been over a decade since the visitors first appeared. Though nature still flourishes, humankind has been crushed and placed under the merciless genocidal campaign of alien intelligence. Technology has been ravaged by electro-magnetic pulses. Humans are forced to wear oxygen converters that conceal their exhaled breath, by which they can be located and destroyed. They now exist either in isolated solitude or in fortified communes. The sky is filled is giant discs that emit howls as they communicate with each other while on the earth’s surface giant creatures constantly seek the remnants of humanity to rend and tear apart in the claws and teeth.

Our main character, only ever referred to as “the woman,” has chosen the life of isolated solitude, serving as a motorcycle courier, carrying messages back and forth between the communes (Comms), where people exist in undernourished squalor and disease. There is a palpable sense of terror that infuses almost every moment of this novel. It is infused with a desperation and a nihilistic grimness that quickly serves to remove it from any kind of Mad Max action adventure tale. In that respect it more closely hews toward Cormac McCarthy's The Road. But the book it most reminded me of is Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s False Dawn, another post-apocalyptic tale that depicts pain, loss, and tragedy in unflinching honesty through poetic prose. 

And Starling’s prose is consistently powerful. At times quietly eloquent and deeply mournful; at other times chaotic, horrific, and genuinely terrifying. And yet, it is also tender, fragile, and hallucinatory dream-like. This seamless shifting between moods is part of the book’s real strength. Broken up into three parts, After: An Anatomy of Fracture starts off with the emphasis on the woman’s solitary life as a messenger in a dangerously unstable world. Over time we are able to piece together the woman’s painful backstory—a military history and the violent loss of her husband and children to the invaders. Emotionally closed, she has the skill-sets to survive but not to escape the memories and the pain of her losses.

The middle portion of the novel shifts into both its most horrific and most action-filled as the woman is captured by “the Crone,” a maniacal semi-cybernetic warlord who rules over an amassed army of cannibalistic barbarians called “the Motherless.” Theirs is a hyper-violent and predatory existence as they attack bands of travelers, stealing women and children to bring back to their fortified compound (a school?). Once there they are housed in dog cages to serve as food and/or to be raised in the ways of the Motherless. The woman determines to rescue a young girl and make good their escape. This sequence is edge of the seat and exciting, but always tempered with fear. Make no mistake, no matter how eloquently described, this is harsh stuff and not for the squeamish. Death is a constant and Starling likes to play by his own set of rules; anyone can die at any time.

The third and final part of the book sees the woman and the girl living well off the grid in Colorado. It’s a nice break from the heaviness of the earlier part, but again, tragedy and sorrow find the duo. Without ever delving into maudlin soliloquy, much is communicated about the human spirit and the will to survive, of the need for companionship and purpose. In the end, not all questions are answered and there is no overarching plot to neatly wrap up. Author Starling is interested in tying together sketches of a fractured life in the wake of unimaginable loss more so than telling a succinct story where every beat is telegraphed and neatly contained and resolved. And we as readers are much richer for that approach. After: An Anatomy of Fracture is not easily defined by genre alone. While it contains aspects of science fiction, it is mostly a survival horror novel of the highest order. I have found that it affected me deeply in a way nothing has in a very long time.

I was fortunate to receive and advance reading copy of this novel direct from the author in exchange for an honest review. It receives my highest recommendation.

Review by Steve Carroll.