A Gift Upon the Shore

Unsparing but ultimately hopeful, this elegiac novel, set in the near future, traces the first generations to survive nuclear war and ensuing plagues. Writer Mary Hope and Rachel Morrow, a painter, eke out a meager existence at a farm on the Oregon coast. As they struggle through the Long Winter following the End, as the nuclear disaster is simply called, their desolation is succeeded by a determination to collect and preserve for a new civilization the great books of Western culture. Down the coast is another set of survivors, the Arkites, a fundamentalist group that denies all knowledge not contained in the Bible. Mary marries and briefly joins the Arkites but leaves after the leader calls Rachel a witch. Years later, when plague strikes the Arkites, Mary agrees to take in the few survivors on condition that she be allowed to educate the children as she sees fit. A bitter struggle develops between Mary and a strong-willed young Arkite for the minds of the children, particularly the boy destined to lead the next generation. Wren's (the Phoenix trilogy) post-nuclear world rings true, as do her compelling depictions of the subsistence-level daily life--the triumphs, the losses and the desperation. ( Mar. )