Who is Last?
Fame is rare in Driftwood- it’s hard to get famous if you don’t stick around long enough for people to know you. But many know the guide, Last, a one-blooded survivor who has seen his world end many lifetimes ago. For Driftwood is a strange place of slow apocalypses, where continents eventually crumble into mere neighborhoods, pulled inexorably towards the center in the Crush. Cultures clash, countries fall, and everything eventually disintegrates.
Within the Shreds, a rumor goes around that Last has died. Drifters come together to commemorate him. But who really was Last?
About Driftwood
Driftwood is the invention of bestselling author Marie Brennan. Mirroring the world that many people are currently living in, the Driftwood stories chronicle the struggles of survivors and outcasts to keep their worlds alive until everything changes, diminishes, and is destroyed. Driftwood is the first full-length novel in this world.
it feels like driftwood is a study in grief, the slow collapse of a culture as it mixes into the world and dilutes into nothing but memory. It reminds me of my own feelings being diaspora and distant from my own roots, where I have nothing but the food to cling to while the world burns down around me.
watching the last person to remember and see and know everyone die is probably the greatest form of grief, knowing that now it’s up to those who are dying and yet living and changing and constantly moving ever closer to the end.
is death peace or something to escape? is death knowing that the time you have is precious and to be valued, or is it to be spent clawing desperately away from for one more breath, for just a bit more time in the light? how does it feel to be separated from death, to never die, and to never be able to join your entire world in eternal rest?
The book is unique in that nothing is certain. Everything is recorded by a third party, and truth is placed in the hands of the people telling the tales of Last’s adventures. We don’t even know if Last is dead. Last could be dead. Last could be alive. It’s the uncertainty of death and endings that weave through the whole tale. Is the end beautiful? Is it to be put off? Is it to be resisted? Worshipped? Lived beside?
anyway good book i love marie brennan’s writing
