28 pages • 56 minutes read
Megan HunterThe End We Start From
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
The novel is told in an unnamed narrator’s first-person reflections, which alternate with italicized sections of third-person-narrated mythology that chart the primordial beginnings of the world. These two forms of narrations are separated by rows of asterisks, which mark them as separate sections without being separate chapters.
The novel opens with the protagonist about to go into labor with her first child. As she wrestles with the impending reality of giving birth, she is also confronted with the fear of having her baby alone because her partner, R, is away on a mountain climbing expedition. When she reaches out to R, he promises to hurry back as soon as he can. In the meantime, sends a friend, S, to stay with her.
The narrator senses that S is uncomfortable with caring for a pregnant woman. S brings along an uninvited friend, J, who brings beer and encourages S to watch television. As the narrator goes into labor, she reflects on her experience with pregnancy, her hopes for the birth of her child, and how her childhood shaped her view of the world.
Thinking back to a childhood fear that she was “chosen for [these] times. The ending times. The creeping times” (3), the narrator draws parallels between that fear and her present reality, noting that the climate crisis became more urgent and alarming throughout each stage of her pregnancy. At 32 weeks, the news issued warnings about rising water; now 38 weeks pregnant, they are being told to evacuate. In the past weeks, she and R joked about “the Gulp Zone,” a silly term used by the news that belies the seriousness of London being swallowed by flood waters.
Following a paragraph of mythology about the first human being fashioned by a germ, the story shifts back to the protagonist, who is experiencing complications with her labor. S and J call an ambulance, and she gives birth alone in the hospital, noting that “R arrives four minutes after the boy is born, frowning and yellow, into the midwife’s hands” (5). In the aftermath of labor and R’s frantic rush home, both parents are too exhausted and worried to celebrate their child’s birth.
As the narrator recovers from giving birth, she observes the other women in the hospital around her, noticing that while giving birth is often both joyful and traumatic, the women around her are experiencing nothing but pain. She notes that another patient is “possibly just young enough to be [her] granddaughter” and already has both a toddler and a newborn (6). By contrast, another woman is in great pain but does not have a baby with her. The narrator is unsettled by the woman’s crying. R bursts in with news that the hospital is about to be flooded, and the patients are being forced to evacuate.
Chapter 2 Summary
The new family of three is trying to drive over washed-out roads. The narrator reflects on the physical trauma of giving birth; she feels “barely intact but the boy is whole, completely made” (9).
On the drive, she and R discuss baby names, and R jokes about naming the baby Noah. They talk through a list of other potential names, including Zeb. When they say this name, the baby raises his head as if answering to this name, and they decide it’s his name. Shortly afterward, they reach their destination: the town where R’s parents live. While they are grateful to have a family to stay with, the couple is frustrated by the constant noise—R’s father, N, will not turn the television off, and R’s mother, G, talks constantly. R begins building on the shed in the garden to create a separate home for his family.
Meanwhile, the narrator builds a relationship with her newborn, marveling at every aspect of his existence and worrying that the miracle of new life could be easily snuffed out. She experiences a dissociative feeling that her baby is real but the increasingly alarming news reports are not. Even when she hears that the apartment she shared with R was submerged, she feels that the news is not real and resolves to concentrate on her baby instead of absorbing more news.
Some snippets of news reach her anyway, and the narrator feels overcome by doom and fear. She distracts herself by taking the baby into the garden and watching R’s building efforts, but she notices that “there is only a pile of planks at the bottom of the garden, no home” (11), making her anxious. However, Z begins to thrive, and his development is a source of hope and inspiration. The family finds moments of joy and connection, and these moments of positivity stand out to the narrator. She also enjoys the quiet moments when she and Z are left alone.
The family falls into a routine with G, N, and R undergoing long and arduous journeys to get groceries for the family, and the familiarity of this routine lulls the characters into believing that they have reached a state of relative calm. Tragedy strikes when N and R return from a supply run without G. They are shocked by whatever they encountered and offer little explanation. The narrator notes how empty the home feels without G’s constant chatter.
Chapters 1-2 Analysis
The story’s opening sentence immediately highlights Motherhood as a Metaphor for the End of the World when the protagonist asserts, “I am hours from giving birth, from the event I thought would never happen to me” (1). This observation hints that just as a pregnant person can expect to inevitably give birth to a child, a climate crisis is similarly inevitable, even if both events feel surreal to the person who is experiencing them. Although many people, like the narrator herself, look forward to having a baby and becoming a parent, they may not feel mentally or emotionally ready to acknowledge the true reality of parenthood until a catalyst—such as giving birth—makes that moment viscerally feel real. The same can be true for people who are aware that the planet is experiencing the effects of climate change and heading toward disaster. Although worrying reports about the climate crisis are regularly on the news, people can become desensitized to these updates and envision such a disaster as an event that will never truly happen. The immediate parallels between birth, climate disaster, and the human tendency to believe that one is immune to disaster grounds the character and her circumstances in reality while highlighting the setting’s dystopian nature.
The first sentence concludes with the addendum that “R is up a mountain” (1). This is the first mention of another character and the first hint that R is someone important to the narrator, someone whom she wants to be present for the birth of her baby. But even as this moment underscores R’s importance to the story, it also creates a distancing effect that conveys that this story takes place in a disrupted world. The use of singular initials throughout the novel sparks a sense of unease and reinforces the isolating nature of this society and the coming crisis.
As the protagonist grapples with the physical and emotional challenges of impending motherhood, including the fact that she will likely be going into labor alone, the escalating flood is a metaphor for her journey through pregnancy. As the floodwaters threaten to engulf the city, the narrator reflects on the irony of her birth plan, “a water birth, with whale music, and hypnotism, and perhaps even an orgasm” (2). She had hoped to be surrounded by water as she gave birth because she thought it would be soothing, natural, and comforting. But as she goes into labor, she is surrounded by the flood waters of a natural disaster; in this context, water feels like a devastating threat. When she begins experiencing complications during labor, she recalls how each phase of her pregnancy aligned with the impending disaster of the flood. For example, when she was 32 weeks pregnant, the news announced that “the water [was] rising faster than they thought. It [was] creeping faster. A calculation error” (3). When she was 38 weeks pregnant, “they [told] us we will have to move. That we [were] within the Gulp Zone” (4). Water as both life-giving and threatening will continue to propel the novel, and the hopeful ending is foreshadowed in the joke about naming the new baby Noah. While the Bible story involves the world’s destruction during the flood, Noah preserves living creatures in his ark and builds the world anew in the aftermath. This is paralleled by the book’s title—The End We Start From—asserting that an apocalypse is not a permanent ending. This introduces the theme of The Vulnerability and Resilience of Humanity.
As the first chapter oscillates between the narrator’s reflections on her pregnancy and the reality of her present experience, her thoughts continue to engage with nature by drawing parallels between animals and herself as a pregnant woman. She feels that S and J “watch [her] from a corner of the room as though [she is] an unpredictable animal, a lumbering gorilla with a low-slung belly and suspicious eyes. Occasionally they pass [her] a banana” (1). Just as her conceptualization of labor mirrors a traumatic flood, her reflection on pregnancy reconfigures her female experience, making her feel that others perceive her as more of an animal than a woman who is a human being in her own right. At the same time, motherhood allows her to exist in a more primal state; she ignores news reports and spends every moment engaging with her baby, getting to know him and forming a close bond with him. She focuses on the smells and sensations of motherhood, feeling that “only Z is real, with his tiny cat skull and sweet-smelling crap. The news is rushing by. It is easy to ignore” (12). Being Z’s mother gives her a transcendent sense of purpose, even in situations that used to make her feel awkward. Considering her interactions with her mother-in-law, she observes, “I never used to know what to say to G, but now I pat Z’s bottom and smile at her” (14). This sense of purpose will guide her actions throughout the text, creating a broader metaphor for using the next generation’s welfare to navigate the real-life climate crisis.
