Inga Simpson’s books all demonstrate her love of the natural world, and her horror at how we are treating it. In The Last Woman in the World she goes one step further, showing us a world that has been all but destroyed by our foolishness: first with fire due to climate change, then pandemic and finally a mysterious death that is causing mass destruction.

Rachel deliberately lives alone. She is an artist; creating beautiful objects with glass. She’s traumatised by the fires that swept the country and has removed herself from the outside world, only seeing her sister and another friend occasionally. When a young woman with her baby hammers on her door one morning, she wants nothing to do with them. But she hears the terror in the mother’s voice and lets them in. The world has been swept by a mysterious death that kills thousands in an instant. Together, Rachel and Hannah must leave the safety of her home to travel to Canberra with baby Isaiah to find him antibiotics, and also find Rachel’s beloved sister.

This novel is relentless. The horrors they encounter on their journey are straight out of a Stephen King book. I couldn’t put it down. I was totally invested in these women and their journey. Rachel’s affinity with the natural world is visceral and the trauma she feels from the destruction wrought by the bushfires is physical:

Another ten minutes and she would have lost everything. Not that any of that would have mattered, not compared to what had been lost. Billions of trees and animals. The pain rushed up in her chest, her heartbeat too fast, breathing too shallow. As if the land was her body.

In Inga Simpson’s Author Note she admits to feeling ashamed by her lack of knowledge regarding Wiradjuri burial trees, or arborglyphs. Like Simpson, my heritage is British, and I too am uncomfortable with my lack of knowledge regarding the traditions of the original people of this country I call home.

In 1987 Jay and her four childhood friends discover a grove of carved trees on her family property, and make an oath to always be friends, protect each other and the trees.

Fast forward to 2004 and Jayne now works as a conservationist in Canberra, in a relationship with Sarah that is loving and dreams of racing in the Tour de France.

In alternating chapters Simpson reveals what happened in that last summer holiday before Jay and her friends started high-school, and how those events impacted on all their lives.

Without judgement, Simpson explores the tensions created by the burgeoning land-rights claims; tensions not only between white farmers and the local indigenous population, but between family members and friends. Museum and gallery collection policies came under scrutiny in the early 2000s, revealing practices that showed no respect for indigenous artefacts.

‘A Wiradjuri spokeswoman had compared the theft, destruction and incarceration of their arborgylphs to Hitler’s theft of Jewish artworks during World War II. It was an old story: destroy a people’s culture, destroy the people.’

I found myself totally immersed in Jen’s world of birds and nature and weather.
Inga Simpson has written a quiet book that gently explores one woman’s journey as she learns to cope with grief and family secrets, together with the ever-changing surrounding natural world.
This book will not appeal to readers looking for a strong narrative drive. However, for those willing to walk the gentle road, savouring their surroundings, this story is totally enchanting.