The Dead and the Gone (The Last Survivors, Book 2) [Paperback]

Susan Beth Pfeffer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 18, 2010

Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as We Knew It enthralled and devastated readers with its brutal but hopeful look at an apocalyptic event--an asteroid hitting the moon, setting off a tailspin of horrific climate changes. Now this harrowing companion novel examines the same events as they unfold in New York City, revealed through the eyes of seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican Alex Morales. When Alex's parents disappear in the aftermath of tidal waves, he must care for his two younger sisters, even as Manhattan becomes a deadly wasteland, and food and aid dwindle.
     With haunting themes of family, faith, personal change, and courage, this powerful novel explores how a young man takes on unimaginable responsibilities.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up—An asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, and every conceivable natural disaster occurs. Seventeen-year-old Alex Morales's parents are missing and presumed drowned by tsunamis. Left alone, he struggles to care for his sisters Bri, 14, and Julie, 12. Things look up as Central Park is turned into farmland and food begins to grow. Then worldwide volcanic eruptions coat the sky with ash and the land freezes permanently. People starve, freeze, or die of the flu. Only the poor are left in New York—a doomed island—while the rich light out for safe towns inland and south. The wooden, expository dialogue and obvious setup of the first pages quickly give way to the well-wrought action of the snowballing tragedy. The mood of the narrative is appropriately frenetic, somber, and hopeful by turns. Pfeffer's writing grows legs as the terrifying plot picks up speed, and conversations among the siblings are realistically fluid and sharp-edged. The Moraleses are devout Catholics, and though the church represents the moral center of the novel, Pfeffer doesn't proselytize. The characters evolve as the city decomposes, and the author succeeds in showing their heroism without making them caricatures of virtue. She accurately and knowingly depicts New York City from bodegas to boardrooms, and even the far-fetched science upon which the novel hinges seems well researched. This fast-paced, thoughtful story is a good pick for melodrama fiends and reluctant readers alike.—Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* In Life as We Knew It (2005), veteran writer Pfeffer painted a terrifying picture of what happened in a rural Pennsylvania town after an asteroid hit the moon and cataclysmic changes on land and sea caused familiar life to grind to a halt. For readers who wondered if things were any better in a bustling city, here is the horrifying answer. On the night the moon tilts, 17-year-old Alex and his younger sisters are alone; their mother is at work, and their father is visiting Puerto Rico. No matter how the kids wish, hope, and pray, their parents don’t return. It’s up to Alex to do what’s best. At first that means bartering for food and batteries and avoiding fighting with the rambunctious Julie—especially after sickly Bri is sent to live at a rural convent. Later it means rescuing Julie from rapists and steering her away from the corpses that litter the street, providing food for rats. Religion is one of the strong threads running through the novel. It would have been interesting to see Alex wrestle more with his staunch Catholicism, but in many ways, the Church anchors the plot. The story’s power, as in the companion book, comes from readers’ ability to picture themselves in a similiar situation; everything Pfeffer writes about seems wrenchingly plausible. Grades 8-12. --Ilene Cooper --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Age Range: 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Graphia; Reprint edition (January 18, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0547258550
• ISBN-13: 978-0547258553
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 6.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (131 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

SUSAN BETH PFEFFER is the author of many books for teens, including Life As We Knew It and the bestselling novel The Year Without Michael. She lives in Middletown, New York.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing companion novel to LAWKI May 8, 2008

By Shaun Duke

Format:Hardcover

I had the privilege to get an advanced reading copy and here is my review.

Last year I read Life As We Knew It by the same author of this wonderful book. You can find the review for that book here. I enjoyed Life As We Knew It so much that when I heard about there being a companion book I jumped with joy. Being a companion book also means you don't have to have read Life As We Knew It to know what is going on. The Dead & the Gone is a completely separate story.
The Dead & the Gone uses the same premise as Life As We Knew It, but takes place in a vastly different environment that creates some truly gruesome challenges for the main characters. Before we were in Pennsylvania away from large bodies of water, away from large cities, and away from practically all the major problems of an urban sprawl. The Dead & the Gone, however, is the exact opposite, taking place in New York City. An asteroid has struck the moon, pushing it into a closer orbit around the Earth and thrusting the Morales family into a grueling struggle for survival. With Alex's parents gone and presumed dead, he has to learn to take care of his younger sisters while keeping his faith in God. But New York City is not an easy place to live in when the electricity rarely works, fuel for stoves is in short supply, and a bitter winter caused by increased volcanic activity thrusts them into extreme cold, famine, and an epidemic.
Once again I feel that Susan has done a fantastic job bringing forward a truly powerful and realistic story about survival. The only thing SF about this story, again, is the impact on the moon, but the world we're presented is a modern world.
The strongest element in this companion novel is a religious element. In Life As We Knew It religion wasn't really a big deal, and in some ways it wasn't even part of the story. For The Dead & the Gone religion is practically everything. Alex is a catholic going to a catholic private school in a family of catholics. He's devout, his younger sister Bri is devout, and his youngest sister is religious, though not nearly as much as her siblings. This has to be stressed in my review because this story is partially a test of faith. How does one hold on to a belief in God when everything around you is falling apart and your prayers aren't being answered? When people start committing suicide or dying on the street and nobody bothers to pick them up and tkae them elsewhere for days, weeks, even months, how do you deal with that belief in God? Even though Alex never does lose his faith, he does battle with doubts and feelings that he feels may be sinful. He must do things that he wouldn't normally do and doesn't feel comfortable doing (such as taking the clothes and personal items off dead bodies in the street to barter for food or stealing from abandoned apartments to do the same).
Alex is a strong character and a character you can't help looking up to. He's charged with taking care of his two sisters practically by himself. Unlike in Life As We Knew It, everything quickly turns to darkness as food becomes incredibly scarce and the bitter winters set in with no way to heat up an apartment that, by default, has no fireplace (I think the quickness of this was somewhat intentional to pull away from the longer feel of the previous book). He has to battle with the decisions he makes every day as he does everything he can just to keep his family alive. It's harsh, it's real, and it's frightening to imagine that anyone would have to go through this. Would any of us survive?
There are some significant diversions beyond location from the previous book. In The Dead & the Gone we see the main character, Alex, get the flu, and have to follow him through the ordeal since he is the central character and the only character whose mind we get into. Susan does a marvelous job presenting a twisted, delusional view through the eyes of someone stricken with illness. The prose becomes disorienting just as the character descends into a myriad of hallucinations and merging of reality and bizarre fantasy. The 'diary' format carries over from the previous book, but here things are split up by day, but the entries are not diary entries, but standard prose entries, which diverges somewhat from the really internal feel and presents more of the grim reality of a New York City fallen from grace.
There are two flaws. The first is the ending, which does leave a little to be desired. Alex has such a hard time getting his sisters out of NYC, but in the end we're led to believe that they must have gotten out. I found myself actually questioning that. What if that plan hadn't worked? What if things failed? Could they be dead now? Perhaps that is what is wanted, and if so, good job, because I'm wondering. To be honest, though, this flaw wasn't that big of a deal. I still loved the book. The other flaw with the book is that for those that have read Life As We Knew It, there isn't a lot of surprise. You know what is going to happen with the moon, you know some of the things that will happen (food shortages, dead, and disease). Granted, some things are different and the way certain elements come into play differ from the first book, but they are the same in a lot of ways. The book, however, is still engaging and certainly a great read. Despite it being 'predictable' in the way I mentioned, it does leave twists and turns you wouldn't expect. People die suddenly and without warning; reliable sources of food suddenly dry up; and illness takes hold.
Regardless, this is one of my favorite books of 2008 already. I fell in love with Life As We Knew It almost instantly, and it was the same here. This book is put together so well that I found myself on the edge of my metaphorical seat (I lay in bed and read). I regret to say that I had to put down the book at one point when something happened that upset me. I mean this in a good way though. Very few books get me so engaged that when someone dies or something bad happens it actually has an effect on me. I think part of me was just upset about what had happened, but I won't ruin that for you, because it would take away the surprise. The pacing is perfect and the dates on the different sections are a great marker of time to keep you in the know. I sincerely hope that Susan continues writing these quasi-SF stories, these real life stories with a slight SF twist.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars a chilling portrayal of survival July 1, 2008

By guitarchick24 VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I read Susan Beth Pfeffer's "The Year Without Michael" quite some time ago, and I remember it being a haunting, if vaguely disturbing story that has no real conclusion. Having read "Life as We Knew It" and its sequel, "The Dead and Gone," I have to say that that seems to be her forte: writing about characters in a slice of time that are dealing with unimaginable events. There's no happy ending to these stories, it's just a brief moment in their lives that show how they cope. In other words, it's a lot like real life.

"The Dead and the Gone" follows 17-year-old Alex in the aftermath of a crazy astronomical event. The moon has been hit by an asteroid that knocks it out of orbit, affecting the tides, the atmosphere, and pretty much the entire environmental balance of the Earth. Alex takes on the responsibility of caring for his two younger teenage sisters while coping with the uncertainty of his parents' fates, food supplies, and the future.

While this could probably be a standalone book, it's more of a compliment to the previous novel set in this future, "Life as We Knew It." Pfeffer assumes you've read the previous book and doesn't set up the moon/asteroid event like she does in the first book. This gives "The Dead and the Gone" a faster-paced feeling, as it starts off with a bang (literally!) and the dramatic events keep unfolding.

The characters in this book are vastly different than the first, which some reviewers don't seem to like. But to me it makes sense - the author is exploring how a worldwide event is affecting people from all walks of life. The "Life as We Knew It" characters aren't especially religious, but Pfeffer chose to sketch a Puerto Rican family that takes faith very seriously in "The Dead and the Gone." Obviously, the world is made up of people from all sorts of backgrounds - so why shouldn't the author take on different types of characters? It might have been interesting if she had chosen to write about characters in another country, instead of basing her two books in the United States. But my overall point is, I think Pfeffer made a great decision in exploring how the same event would affect people with a different worldview.

If you're looking for a happy ending, these are not the books you want to read. They're more character studies in a short period of time, but there is no real conclusion. There's hope at the end, but the story's not really "finished" - kind of like real life.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The best end of the world novel I have ever read, even better than "The Road" April 7, 2010

By travb

Format:Hardcover

I have read hundreds of end of the world books in my life, I have read 80% of all zombie books, watched dozens of movies on the end of the world. What I look for in a post apocalyptic book is realism after the disaster. Ironically, I always accept the premise which led to the apocalypse with no question, but am extremely demanding that the characters and the world around them deal with the apocalypse realistically.

Americans have this naive, misplaced, idea that government is generally bad, and the importance of their own individualism. Most American post-apocalyptic fiction reflect this, having the government as either being destroyed immediately, or being incredible inept and making the crisis worse. The Dead and the Gone handles the collapse of society in a more realistic matter, a novelized version of the incredible British "Threads" film (1994).

Consider The Dead and the Gone a prequel and superior novel to "The Road". The Road was incredibly, unflinchingly, realistic, I have never read a book that conveyed such utter realistic hopelessness as The Road. The author was honest to the reader, and never tried to shelter the reader from the Man and the Boy's ultimate fate. But like many post-apocalyptic books, "The Road" was years after the disaster, and as movie critics complained, the Man and the Boy skirted cities so the reader never really truly saw the full hell this family and by extension, the world, went through. The Dead and the Gone vividly shows the death of the world.