Zenith

Julie Bertagna

Young Picador

0230015344

Feb 2007

‘What if the world is all ocean’ What if this is all there is? Ocean and ocean and ocean. I don’t like it Mara. I hate this wild world.’

Multiple narration and the three interwoven story threads within ‘Zenith’ gives the novel a widened breadth of focus, an extension of influence, that lends it a power and scope far and beyond that of its already impressive predecessor, ‘Exodus’.
An increasingly desperate world climate ‘ politically and geographically ‘ forms the electric backdrop to ‘Zenith’. Driven by the ardent belief that Greenland will have risen above the waters with the melting of the ice-caps, Mara sails a course of attempted salvation for herself and her people (the latter forming an increasingly insurgent crew).
Bertagna’s greatest skill as the author of this remarkable novel is successfully breathing a transcending sense of hope, courage and, over-arching, compassion out from the chaos, corruption and crisis that circumstances have engendered.
Bleakness of the world and the sheer desperation of the plights to salvage life through differentiated means of settlement and abode powered by an urgency for survival is belied by the power, lyricism and poetry of the author’s writing which stimulate thought and thoughtfulness. The ending leaves readers breathless in anticipation of a climax that must surely follow for this climate-change epic’?