On the Beach (novel)
The novel details the experiences of a mixed group of people in Melbourne as they await the arrival of deadly radiation spreading towards them from the Northern Hemisphere, following a nuclear war some years previous.[2][3] Shute's initial story was published as a four-part series, The Last Days on Earth, in the London weekly periodical Sunday Graphic, in April 1957.[5] The title also refers to T. S. Eliot's poem The Hollow Men, which includes the lines: In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river.Commander Towers has become attached to Moira Davidson, a young Australian woman distantly related to Osborne who tries to cope with the impending end of human life through heavy drinking.Because he has been assigned to travel north with the Americans, Peter tries to explain, to Mary's fury and disbelief, how to kill their baby and herself, by taking the pill should he not return from his mission in time to help.A crewman sent ashore with oxygen tanks and protective gear discovers that although the city's residents have long since perished, some of the region's hydroelectric power is still working due to primitive automation technology.The Holmeses plant a garden that they will never see; Moira initially acts as a socialite – drinking and partying excessively – but upon meeting Towers takes classes in typing and shorthand; Osborne and others organize a dangerous motor race that results in the violent deaths of several participants; elderly members of a gentlemen's club drink up the wine in the club's cellar, debate over whether to move the fishing season up, and fret about whether agriculturally destructive rabbits will survive human beings.In the end, Towers chooses not to remain and die with Moira, but rather to lead his crew on a final mission to scuttle the submarine outside of Australian territorial waters.Historian David McCullough, writing for The New York Times, called On the Beach "the most haunting evocation we have of a world dying of radiation after an atomic war.This myth, argues Kearney, is dangerous as it discourages people from taking precautionary measures that could save lives in the event of a nuclear attack, in the mistaken belief that any precaution is futile.