It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken
“When I was alive, I imagined something redemptive about the end of the world. I thought it would be a kind of purification. Or at least a simplification. Rectification through reduction. I could picture the empty cities, the reclaimed land. The end of the world looks exactly the way you remember. Don’t try to picture the apocalypse. Everything is the same.”
At the start of every new year, I find my mind squirrelling away ideas about what’s in my bookish future. What new authors will I uncover? What books will captivate? Which novel will claim my number one ‘best’ read of the year?
Well, we might only be halfway through the year, but Anne de Marcken’s It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over (2024, Giramondo Press) has already taken the top spot for me.
Joint winner of the 2022 Novel Prize, de Marcken’s slim novel stands out for its utterly unique take on a well-known trope: zombies. In this blend of zombies, post-apocalyptic themes and philosophical musings, we’re drawn into a world where the ordinary collides with the extraordinary. De Marcken, renowned for her lyrical prose and keen eye for the human condition, delivers a narrative that transcends the confines of traditional storytelling, weaving together threads of love, loss and the inexorable passage of time.
The book opens with our unnamed narrator telling us she has lost her arm. This simple detail, which anyone living would keenly feel as a massive trauma, is positioned as ‘business as usual’ and is a brilliant entry into what we are about to experience:
“It came off clean at the shoulder. Janice 2 picked it up and brought it back to the hotel. I would have thought it would affect my balance more than it has. It is like getting a haircut.”
We quickly learn that our narrator is part of a bigger group of undead, living communally in a hotel. Apart from the present day, they cannot remember much of their past, including their names. Our narrator is plagued by shadows of thought and memories. They can recall that they have lost someone they held dear, and they want to get back to a version of their previous existence. This desire and some dramatic events at the hotel prompt them to embark on a journey to rediscover what – and who – they have lost.
“I miss how we retold each other the same stories as if we’d just remembered them. And the way we’d play along, asking questions to get at the details we already knew…But now we are all just stories. You. Me. All of us. Just the raspy husk of ourselves.”
This is the kind of novel where I don’t want to give away too much of the plot because the beauty of it is in experiencing it for yourself – but also, the plot is less a structured arc and more what you see of yourself reflected in the pages.
Our narrator is on a journey, and the further along the path she gets, the less sure we are whether the world she inhabits is a reality, an afterlife, or some hellish purgatory.
“But to be undead is to be superfluous, perpetual. The moon is always full. We dream without sleeping. We refuse to return to the earth. Hunger is relentless.”
I will tell you that at the heart of the novel lies a poignant exploration of memory and its fleeting nature. The loose structural approach mirrors the unreliable nature of memory itself, with the added complexity, and sometimes hilarity, of zombie brain functioning. De Marcken captures the essence of nostalgia, evoking a sense of longing for moments that have slipped through the cracks of time. The immediacy of her characters gives them richness despite our lack of context, and her evocative imagery offers us plenty of opportunity to explore how our recollections shape our identities.
“It was the end. But we did not know it then. You do not know the end has happened until later. Or you do not admit it. Looking back, you see it. And you realise that all the time after that was just an effort to keep going as if it weren’t already over. I was a zombie even then. Ravenous eater of a world that was already the last of its kind.
One of the novel's greatest strengths lies in its exploration of the bonds that connect us. Through the half-remembered love they have lost, the fractious connections they make both at the hotel and on their pilgrimage, and their observations of others, de Marcken’s narrator delves into the intricacies of human relationships, revealing how we both shape and are shaped by those around us, for better or worse.
“We are not hurrying anymore. I don’t need as much assistance, but the old woman keeps ahold of my arm. I think now it is more for her than for me. We are like convalescent and nurse, but I’m not sure who is who.”
It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over is a gorgeous, masterful meditation on the passage of time, the enduring power of memory and the fundamental questions of human existence: When the knowledge of self is dismantled, what is left?
For our undead narrator, it is two of the most universal and demanding concepts of the living: love and longing.
Elaine Chennatt is a writer, educator and psychology student currently residing in nipaluna. She has a special interest in bibliotherapy (how we use literature to make sense of our lives) and is endlessly curious about the creative philosophies of others. She lives with her husband and two bossy dachshunds on the not-so-sunny side of the river (IYKYK). Find her online at wordswithelaine.com.
