The story follows a man and his aunt who must muddle through on the south-east English coast in the aftermath of an unexplained disaster and the arrival of mysterious alien beings.
The author has said he deliberately omitted as much explanation about the background to the events as possible, in order to make readers feel the same disorientation as the characters.
He has said: “The End of Everything is about trying to live as if nothing has gone wrong. It’s a disaster story in which the disaster is the failure to comprehend.”
He added: “I’ve passed on to the reader some of the puzzlement and confusion of the characters in the book as they face a future with the alien.”
That approach has led to a mixed reaction. The Guardian praised the book but said, external “it won’t be for everyone”, while the New York Times said, external: “The more we learn about the conditions of this novel’s broken world, the harder it is to grasp.”
The Literary Review described it as, external “a work of uncanny beauty, tender and terrifying in equal parts”, while the Telegraph said, external “you feel you’re not so much reading as dreaming”.
Another Telegraph critic wrote, external that it was “ultimately, in both skill and humour, a cut above” the other shortlisted books.
“And in an age when AI overlords keep threatening to kill us, and the Government has told us to stockpile tinned food and bottled water, it is, for once, a novel that you can genuinely call ‘timely’.”