The Pesthouse, like the two other books by Jim Crace that I have read, is initially composed of absolutely beautiful writing, just like Being Dead, but at some point into the book everything starts to feel like it is composed of cardboard. This is a terrible, sad thing, because the books two main characters, Margaret and Franklin, are terribly endearing — even if they hardly speak, hardly anyone speaks in The Pesthouse — and our time with them is all too brief.

The Pesthouse is a tale of unlikely love between two absolute innocents in a dystopic America where absolutely nothing, except perhaps the dirt, is innocent. Even Margaret, who has never done an uncouth thing in her life (except, perhaps, bringing a beating upon a potential suitor in her youth), comes from a town that shamelessly profited off the shameless optimism of weary American travelers hoping for peace and (a safer kind of) freedom on the other side of the Atlantic. It is only fitting then, that in the book’s introductory chapter, that everyone in that city is killed by a, perhaps vengeful, freak geologic incident.

Where this all takes place exactly is unclear (though one bit of prose reminded me of the New Jersey Turnpike) and when it all takes place is hinted at through the recounted memories of dead family members and rusty coins embellished with buildings (containing a tiny floating Abraham who would one day come and return America to it’s splendor!)

The Pesthouse is a novel absolutely devoid of explanation. This is odd, since there is almost no dialog, the novel operates entirely on Crace’s wonderful prose and exposition. But when Franklin disappears randomly, and with little fan-fare, the terror of Margaret’s existence is exhilarating — in that I wanted nothing more to get through all these pages of one-dimensional chase and ellusion. (I just invented a word!) I don’t know why it happens, but without Franklin by Margaret’s side, it almost feels like there is little reason to keep reading.

Crace’s America-post-whatever is convincingly dangerous, as such that it seems like it is only a matter of time before Margaret’s age, beauty, or innocence catch up with her while she is without Franklin. The novel is harrowing in this way, and perhaps ultimately disappointing: nothing truly ugly happens to our protagonists. I wouldn’t have wanted anything to happen to them, however, as I said, they both are true innocents and the world they exist within is lacking in redemption, but by the end of the novel you almost feel as if nothing has happened (and this is, in part, a literal thing) where you should feel, instead, that our two lovers — who hardly even touch each other throughout the course of the novel — have grown and hardened through their experiences and come out of it more sure of themselves and their love.

But, no. Margaret and Franklin both land themselves is very shitty situations in which either of them could become seriously injured or maimed, but both manage to avoid any sort of real psychological or physical harm. Franklin is beaten, repeatedly, for months on end, but apparently the beatings are so unremarkable that Crace only brushes over them briefly when Franklin suddenly reappears long after I had figured that Crace pulled some sort of cruel punch by making Franklin’s disappearance have some permanence. Margaret is very nearly raped, and then manages to avoid the lecherous desires of some obviously crazy religious nutjobs and spends the winter doing absolutely nothing. Margaret emerges from her scenarios literally untouched. Franklin emerges thinned, muscular, and no less boyish than he went in.

By the end of The Pesthouse, you can’t help but be happy: we’re introduced to two innocent, lovable and loving characters, who obviously belong together in a world where nothing aside from themselves is pure and untainted. They’re thrust into harrowing situations and emerge from them completely unscathed. But the journey to the end is paved with somewhat one-dimensional situations and, perhaps unavoidable, cliches. The happiness you feel for them is slightly strained by the fact that the journey, both for the characters and for the reader, is one of futile hardships performed merely to achieve the destruction of long-held dreams. Franklin’s almost relentless naivety and optimism in the face of Margaret’s almost exhausting reasonableness is the one thing that saves the novel from being an absolutely depressing affair.

But, by the very end, the one great poetic loss of The Pesthouse is simply the slow dispersal of Franklin and Margaret’s personal things as the world tears at their edges. But even that loss is not much of a blow to them, because when they are together they seem to need nothing else: their frayed edges intertwine and they build a somewhat silly strength out of romance in the face of adversity and their own absolute inexperience. Survival is — in the end — just a foot-massage away for these two unlikely lovers in America.