Slightly More Than Ten and a Half Chapters: The Survivor

What is truth? Or perhaps more precisely, what is truth? Do we believe what is true, or what we prefer?

Barnes continues his examination of faith here with a story about a woman who may be the last survivor of a nuclear war – or may be imagining the whole thing. Which is true? We never find out. It’s a story about faith and questions, not a story about answers.

It also rather cleverly continues the Noah’s Ark motif, while managing not to be too obvious with it. Like the stories before it, it’s also about power and agency, what we choose for ourselves out of the options that we have convinced ourselves are the only options.

It’s all coming back to me now why I loved this book so much the first time around. But I do find myself wondering why I never re-read it until now. (And for that matter, where did my original copy go? I have a feeling I loaned it to someone I’ve since lost touch with…)