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Wild Abandon
Joe Dunthorne - Author
£12.99

Book: Paperback | 153 x 234mm | 256 pages | ISBN 9780241144060 | 04 Aug 2011 | Hamish Hamilton
 Wild Abandon

Kate and Albert, sister and brother, are not yet the last two human beings on earth, but Albert is hopeful. The secluded communal farm they grew up on is - after twenty years - disintegrating, taking their parents' marriage with it. They both try to escape: Kate, at seventeen, to a suburbia she knows only through fiction and Albert, at eleven, into preparations for the end of the world - which is coming, he is sure.

And then there is Don: father of the family, leader and maker of elaborate speeches. Faced with the prospect of saving his community, his marriage, his son from apocalyptic visions and his daughter from impending men, he sets to work on reunifying the commune by bringing it into the modern age, through self-sufficiency, charisma and a rave with a 10k soundsystem.

The last day on earth is coming. Bring your own booze.

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Wild Abandon Author Reading

Click here to watch Joe Dunthorne reading an extract from Wild Abandon.

‘First off, the sky goes dark.’ ‘Of course it does.’ ‘Then they come out the ground and, if you’re a certain type of person, drag you under, where your body is consumed.’ They got to the gate of the pen and Kate opened it, letting her brother through first. ‘And I’m guessing you are that type of person,’ he said. She slid the bolt back across while he ran ahead, his boots squelching in the mud. Walking on, she watched him duck under the low roof, slapping the wooden joist with his free hand as he went inside the shelter. At eleven years old, her brother awoke every day buzzing. Everything he saw in these first few hours – the gravestones of pets, log piles, frost – deserved a high five. ‘I’m gonna milk the face off you,’ Albert told the goats. ‘I’m going to milk you to death.’ He did resemble a trainee grim reaper, she thought, in his deephooded navy poncho, carrying a bucket to collect fresh souls. Following him into the shelter, she sat on a low stool next to Belona – her favourite goat, a four-year-old Alpine with white legs and a black comma-shaped beard – who was against the back wall with her neck tied. She stamped her hooves as she ate from her feed pan. Belona was notoriously difficult in the mornings; this was part of her and Kate’s affinity. Albert was talking as he milked. ‘. . . so she has this massive picture of what’s at the centre of the universe and it’s basically a pair of eyes – two huge evil eyes . . .’ Kate tried not to listen. She squeezed, tugged, closed her fingers from index to pinkie and focused on the noise of milk on metal; the sound slowly deadened as the bucket filled. She put her ear against Belona’s side and listened to the gurgling innards. The swell and slump of the goat’s breathing. ‘. . . and research shows, you’ll have to wave bye-bye to gravity and time and university and . . .’ ‘Albert.’ He stopped talking but she knew his speech continued, unbroken, inside his head. She started to get a rhythm going, two-handed, fingers finally warming. Her brother, meanwhile, played his goat like an arcade machine. ‘One nil,’ he said, as he picked up his bucket and stool, and moved to the other side of the divider. He put a feed pan in front of Babette and she immediately dug in. Belona started battling a little, her legs jerking, clanging against the bucket. With her knuckles, Kate stroked the tassels that hung from the goat’s jaw and, leaning over, whispered to her. ‘What are you saying?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘Are you in love with Belona? That’s okay if you are. Mum and Dad won’t mind. They’re totally easy with whatever. They just want you to be in a loving relationship.’ Belona kicked and the bucket tipped – spilling half the milk on to the mud and straw. Kate’s jaw tightened. Her brother, through years of collecting words from international visitors to the community, had compiled an armoury of exotic insults. He tutted and proceeded to call her something bad in Bengali. It was just getting light. There was the smell of hay and shit. Hooves skittered on the stones. Outside the gloomy hut she could see the rain still coming down in the pen, filling the holes left by their boots.