Environmental catastrophe

For more than half a century, M. John Harrison has been writing about decay and dispossession in a style that is at once restless and exacting. Often an audacious weaver of science fictions, he has also operated in a ruggedly realistic vein – though the distinction would probably strike him as bogus, a marketing position rather than useful framing. The End of Everything occupies typical Harrison terrain, with notes of J.G. Ballard and David Lynch as well as more than a hint of Stanley Spencer’s paintings (think compost heaps and clutter).

There were years when, like many others, I dreamed of crossing America coast to coast, riding the Greyhound bus. It was the thing to do – a rite of passage. For those who never made it, all is not lost: Joanna Pocock has done it for us. Twice.  In 2006, fending off depression after her third miscarriage and the death of her sister, Pocock took the Greyhound from Detroit to Los Angeles, ‘running away from loss’. Seventeen years later she has gone back, looking for the motels, diners, cities, suburbs and truck stops encountered on that first trip, and she is stunned by what she finds – stations closed or pared back, with nowhere to wash, rest or buy food.