A woman, the narrator, is having her first child. At the same time, a massive natural disaster strikes the country. Floods inundate large parts of England, and fires break out. The woman and her partner must leave their home with their young son, seek refuge, and escape to an island. The small family becomes separated. The terror of an escalating environmental drama unfolds alongside the intimacy and joy of a mother-child bond. Through the eyes of a newborn, a world is discovered that may be on the brink of farewell. Lyrical and laconic, interspersed with passages that read like biblical quotes, it possesses an archaic power and poetic tenderness, being both wise and humorous, then again as if chiseled in stone - such a text has not been encountered in a long time. It serves as a female counterpart to Cormac McCarthy's "The Road.".