Children of the Dust (novel)

Children of the Dust
Author(s)	Louise Lawrence
Publisher	Harper & Row
Publication date	1985
ISBN	0-06-023739-2

Children of the Dust is a post-apocalyptic novel, written by Louise Lawrence, published in 1985. The book details a family prehostric history across three generations during the aftermath of a nuclear war and the horror it entails. The story covers in detail the three characters, who through their actions are the last hope of their race.

The book focuses on the horrors that occur after the bombing. The survivors of the blast must suffer through radiation, nuclear winter, feuds between rival groups and mutation. The new race, named as homo-superior, have adapted to the loss of the ozone layer and the extra radiation to become the dominant species on the planet.

The book is broken up in to three sections for each generation. The novel offers some hope that humanity could survive the horrors of war (as an allegory for the current age) in order to form a new world.

Plot summary

Sarah

When the nuclear attack sirens sound and all within walking distance of the school must go home, Sarah runs the two miles from her school in twenty minutes and arrives in time to help her step mother; Veronica prepare the living room as an "inner sanctum" to protect the family from the coming nuclear bombs and resultant fallout. The reason for the attack is never mentioned, but it presumably part of a nuclear war strike that, Sarah says, has already taken Hamburg and Leningrad by the time of the sirens sounding. Sarah and Veronica assemble living provisions, rudimentary sanitary supplies as well as clothes and toys for William (aged five) and Catherine (aged seven), Veronica's children, in the room. The family then shelter inside as the bombs fall, rationing food supplies and trying to cope with the uncomfortable conditions of their fallout room. Catherine refuses to eat anything that is not canned or drink anything but bottled water for fear of contamination.

Sarah realises that the water the family has been using has become contaminated with radioactive fallout from the unblocked chimney and they are all likely to shortly start suffering radiation sickness apart from Catherine, who has intuitively avoided anything contaminated and remained safe under the blanketed table she calls "her house". Veronica begins suffering the disease first and subsequently leaves the house several times to collect canned (safe) food for Catherine and contaminated food that will keep the affected family members free from hunger until their inevitable deaths. She tells Sarah that community members have gathered in the church and a local farmer is giving away contaminated meat for free, but most appear affected by radiation sickness and are also dying. Later, when her symptoms become worse, Veronica leaves, presumably to die. William also begins to suffer from radiation sickness, and when he is near death and Sarah begins to weaken she leaves the house, taking Catherine. She gathers food for her from the house of the town farmer, who has killed himself and his family, and takes Catherine to the remote home of Johnson, a pacifist who sold fruit to the family earlier in the year. Johnson has been prepared for the war, and appears unaffected by radiation sickness. She makes Johnson promise to care for Catherine, in order that she survive, and he agrees. She grows up and gives birth to seven children

Ophelia

This section begins with a flashback to the day of the war, which reveals that Sarah, Catherine and William's father, Bill (a lecturer at Bristol University) was driving to a meeting when a woman named Erica Kowlanski flagged him down. As a leading authority on cellular cloning, she had a pass granting her (and anyone accompanying her) shelter in a Government bunker. Bill agreed to take Erica to the bunker at Avon, but had mixed feelings about surviving when his wife and children did not.

Within two months of the war, Britain is gripped by a nuclear winter, with temperatures plunging several degrees below zero. As a result, Bill and the other people in the bunker are trapped underground, where they remain for nearly two years. When the nuclear winter finally ends, the bunker authorities send helicopters on reconnaissance missions, which reveal that there are still people alive outside, struggling to survive against the odds. Then, it emerges that the ozone layer has been damaged, forcing anyone venturing outside to wear protective clothing.

Before the war, Erica did not want a family. Now, however, she feels it is her duty as a woman still of child-bearing age to help repopulate. So she marries Bill and, later, gives birth to his daughter, Ophelia. Bill has been assigned to teach the bunker's teenaged population and, though he is officially meant to teach science-based subjects, he introduces subjects such as English literature and politics into the curriculum, believing that too much emphasis on science will leave the youngsters unable to use their imaginations.

Ophelia spends the first sixteen years of her life in the bunker, where she calmly accepts the restrictions on her life. But other youngsters, in particular an Anglo-American youth named Dwight Allison, are not so accepting. Under the influence of Bill's teachings, Dwight has come to believe that General MacAllister, the man in charge of the bunker, has too much authority and, one day, spray-paints a slogan denouncing MacAllister as a "fascist pig". As a punishment, Dwight is sentenced to a year of hard labour and expelled from school, while MacAllister gives Dwight's former classmates a long lecture on the dangers of subversive political activity.

Some time later, a large herd of cattle is found in one of the outside communities. MacAllister orders Dwight's father, Colonel Jeff Allison, to bring the cattle to the bunker where they will be under "government protection". But Dwight believes it would be wrong to take the cattle when the outsiders depend on them for survival and hurries to tell Bill. Bill and Dwight decide that the best course of action would be to leave the bunker and warn the community which owns the cattle; though Ophelia accompanies them, she does so because they are the people she is closest to, not because she feels they are doing the right thing.

Outside, the world is recovering from the effects of the war and Ophelia is able to experience things she has previously only known about via her father's lessons. The community which owns the cattle turns out to be the one which Johnson is building; Bill is soon reunited with Catherine, who is heavily pregnant with her eighth child. She married Johnson when she was in her teens, but six of the children she has already given birth to have died in infancy due to genetic mutation. Since Johnson is old enough to be Catherine's father, Ophelia is disgusted, thinking the outsiders are uncivilised compared to the people in the bunker. But, when she tells Dwight, he retorts that the latter are like "dinosaurs", attempting to maintain pre-war standards of living and not adapting to the changed conditions in the world. During the course of the day, Ophelia meets her niece, Lilith, who was born with white eyes and pale hairs all over her body; in her case, there is also a defect in her vocal cords, which prevents her from speaking verbally.

Since there is no other community which can handle a herd the size of Johnson's, Bill and Dwight are unable to get the cattle away before Colonel Allison and his men come to collect them. Johnson attempts to compromise by offering Colonel Allison enough cattle to form the basis of a herd, but Colonel Allison says he is not in a position to negotiate. Realising the discussion is going nowhere, Dwight sabotages all but one of the Army trucks, making it impossible to take the cattle back to the bunker, and escapes into the wilderness. But Ophelia wants to return to the bunker, even though doing so means she will never see Dwight again. The section ends with Ophelia in tears, as Lilith (with her newborn sister in her arms) smiles at her pityingly.

Simon

Five decades after the war, the thing Bill always warned of has happened; the bunker is decaying and fuel supplies have run out. As a result, the people in the bunker have been forced to leave and seek sanctuary among outside communities.

On one such expedition, Ophelia's son, Simon, sees a pack of wild dogs stalking a person who is searching the ruins of an old house. He fires his gun, killing one of the dogs and scattering the rest, then goes to help the person they were stalking. That person proves to be a mutant girl named Laura, who tells him that "weapons are evil" and that he has no right to kill a living thing. When Simon sees that Laura's body is covered with hair (which protects her skin from being damaged by ultra-violet radiation), he is repulsed by her, thinking she is an "ape".

Shortly after meeting Laura, Simon injures his leg on a rusty nail. Since his people have no means to treat injuries, he is taken to the community where Laura lives, which is presently revealed to be the community Johnson was planning to build. Rather than having separate homes for each family, the community consists of a large "house" which reminds Simon of a Tibetan monastery. Seeing the well-ordered community where people have learned to make everything they need themselves, Simon begins to feel that his own people are "failures", having tried to restore pre-war standards at the expense of their children's futures.

Meanwhile, Catherine is still alive. She is the last survivor from the pre-war world among the outsiders and years of exposure to ultra-violet radiation have taken their toll. She is now blind, earning her the nickname "blind Kate", and is covered in festering sores. Simon sees in her a glimpse of his own future and, on learning that she is Laura's grandmother, is so repulsed at the thought of being related to a mutant that he can't bring himself to acknowledge it. Instead, when Laura asks if he has ever heard of the people who once came to the community to take the cattle, he claims not to know them.

The next morning, Simon finds himself the topic of much discussion among the mutants, as parents attempt to explain his people's situation to their children. Unable to bear being the subject of pity, he storms out of the dining hall and, following a victriolic lecture from blind Kate, leaves the settlement even though his leg is not fully healed. He plans to catch up with the rest of his party, but a pack of dogs chases him into a ruined church. While there, he sees a glider which he thinks is from one of the other bunkers flying overhead.

In fact, the glider belongs to one of the other settlements and the pilot alerts Laura's people to Simon's whereabouts. Laura rides to the rescue on her horse, Timms, using her psychic powers to send the dogs away. Later, Laura tells Simon that she and the rest of the mutants have developed telekinetic powers, enabling them to lift weights they would otherwise be unable to lift; they can also communicate with each other via telepathy. She believes the mutants are a new species of humans, but they need the technical knowledge Simon's people have kept alive if they are to reach their full potential.

Simon begins to wonder how far the mutants' powers extend and whether they can be used in conjunction with his people's knowledge of technology. He is finally coming to terms with what his ancestors did to the world and realises that, though he can't change the past, he can do something positive with his own life. In addition, he realises that the nuclear war was meant to happen, so that Laura (whom he finally acknowledges as his cousin) and the rest of her kind could be born.