The Half-life Of Snails by Philippa Holloway
Two sisters, two nuclear power stations, one child caught in the middle...
When Helen, a self-taught prepper and single mother, leaves her young son Jack with her sister for a few days so she can visit Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone, they both know the situation will be tense. Helen opposes plans for a new power station on the coast of Anglesey that will take over the family’s farmland, and Jennifer works for the nuclear industry and welcomes the plans for the good of the economy.
But blood is thicker than heavy water, and both want to reconnect somehow, with Jack perhaps the key to a new understanding of one another.
Yet while Helen is forced to face up to childhood traumas, and her worst fears regarding nuclear disaster, during a trip that sees her caught up in political violence and trapped in Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone during the 2014 Euromaidan revolution, Jennifer too must discover that even the smallest decision can have catastrophic and long-lasting effects, both within the nuclear industry, and within the home.
And Jack isn’t like other five-year olds... as they will both discover with devastating consequences.
About the author
Philippa Holloway is a writer and senior lecturer at Staffordshire University, living in England but with her heart still at home in Wales. Her short fiction is published on four continents. She has won prizes in literary awards including the Fish Publishing Prize, The Scythe Prize, and the Writers & Artists Working Class Writer’s Prize. She is co-editor of the collection 100 Words of Solitude: Global Voices in Lockdown 2020 (Rare Swan Press). @thejackdawspen
Review
‘The Half-life of Snails’ is a bleak examination of the threat to local communities near a nuclear power plant. But it is also a story of relationships, family ties, ties to the land and ties to each other. I enjoyed this book but I am fascinated by Chernobyl and the history and what has been left behind. I have been wanting to visit the exclusion zone for years but my husband has always been no!
Helen and her son Jack have been living in the shadow of a nuclear power plant in Anglesey their whole lives, it's part of the landscape. But it needs to be decommissioned and a new one built. Her farm is in the way but she refuses to sell to them. Her family - along with her parents and sister are the last holdouts. Helen decides to visit Chernobyl to get the evidence she can use in her protests but when she gets there Ukraine erupts into a revolution and Putin annexes Crimea. Will Helen make it home to Jack?
I could understand Helen’s tortured world of prepping, the pressure of opposing a new development and needing to visit Chernobyl. I kept expecting some revelation to pop up that would explain her reasoning for feeling this way. I was waiting for it to drop that she was originally from Ukraine. I still feel the reader truly doesn't understand Helen but I also think that this is meant to be the case!
I found myself swept up with the author’s writing as it was very descriptive and emotive, especially when in Ukraine and Chernobyl. We have so many images from media in our minds but these were different for me, more intense and real.
The strength of this book was in its relationships between the family members. I did feel sorry for Jack being isolated and different from children his age. But he was self-sufficient, amazingly so for his age. I loved the relationship between Helen and Baba. I could have read more about that section!
This book sucked me in and even though I felt horrendous health-wise reading it, I couldn't put it down! A testament to a great book.
