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{{infoboxsortinfobox1
|title=The Pesthouse
|sort=Pesthouse
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=320
|publisher=Picador
|date=March 2007
|isbn=978-0330445627
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>0330445626</amazonuk>|amazonusaznuk=0330445626|aznus=<amazonus>0385520751</amazonus>
}}
In a post-apocalyptic America, technology is no more. Government has collapsed and people live in a kind of medieval society. They look with wonder on the twisted metal ruins of its past civilisation, the realities of which are long since forgotten. Money no longer exists and people scratch out a living farming in increasingly hostile conditions on the contaminated land. The once great migration to the west has been reversed as people struggle back to the east and the ocean, where they hope ships will take them to the old/new world and a better life.
My thanks to Picador for sending the book.
Similarly addictive and almost hallucinatory writing can be found in J G Ballard's [[Empire of the Sun]], while Margaret Atwood's [[''The Handmaid's Tale]] '' has an altogether less hopeful view for a regressive American future.
{{toptentext|list=Bookbag's Science Fiction Picks}}
{{amazontext|amazon=0330445626}}
{{amazonUStext|amazon=0385520751}}
[[Category:Dystopian Fiction]]
{{commenthead}}
|name=Magda
|verb=said
|comment= So you don't mind s-f after all, if literary, do you?
But what is so hopeful then in this book? With "Bands of rustlers roam the land, taking slaves for labour. Strange religious fundamentalists reject all relics of the past."?
I also see the handymaids, btw, and increasingly feel that it will be bloody well deserved.
}}
{{comment
|name=Jill
|verb=replied
|comment= It's a kinda phoenix from the ashes thing. Awkward to explain without spoilers! I like almost anything literary for one reason or another, yes. I just don't like genre SF I guess. I rather like the whole backward future idea too. However much I liked this book though - and I absolutely loved it - I didn't believe in its message one bit.
}}