The End of the World Running Club is the first novel by British author, Adrian J. Walker. Edgar Hill is a husband and father of two, albeit not a very good one. He is quick to shift responsibility for care of Alice and Arthur on his hard-working wife, Beth. Ed is pretty lazy, if he can get away with it; he also drinks too much, eats too much and he definitely does not like running or, for that matter, physical exertion of any sort. But now he is running. He is running from Edinburgh to Cornwall.

Ed and his family were very lucky (no real thanks to Ed) to survive the apocalyptic event that ravaged Edinburgh, Britain, and probably much of the Northern Hemisphere. And now everything is different. There is some sort of rescue imminent, but somehow Ed and a few others miss out. His family is on the other side of the country, and he is desperate to join them. A group of seven set out: three soldiers, who seem to take charge, and four men from very different backgrounds. They soon realise that no vehicle is going to get them where they need to be. But can a grossly unfit man, even with the best of intentions and the most fervent encouragement, run there?

While the post-apocalyptic novel has been done many, many times, Walker’s take on it is a good one. As well as the tensions within the group, there are the encounters with other survivors. Of course, the extremes of human behaviour are exhibited: the group do their best to maintain decency, but there are those whose focus on their own survival leads them just one tiny step short of cannibalism. Gross cruelty, selfishness, cowardice and a hunger for power are countered with valour, incredible kindness, amazing generosity and altruism.

Walker is skilled at portraying the sort of hopeless, sort of misfitting male, as readers of The Last Dog on Earth will know, and although Ed Hill is nothing like Reginald Hardy, there are similarities. He gives them both wise observations: “I believe what I believe to make life less terrifying. That’s all beliefs are: stories we tell ourselves to stop being afraid. Beliefs have very little to do with the truth.” Certainly, Ed does have some insight: “I was no hunter, no engineer, no fighter. I was nothing the world needed me to be. Nothing that my family needed me to be. I did what my body wanted me to do: eat, sleep, stay still, f%ck, eat, sleep.”

Walker’s descriptive prose is often gorgeous. On a glass of whiskey: “I took a particularly large mouthful. It was glorious, nothing short of it. The way I was feeling – bone soaked and frozen – a capful of cheap supermarket rum would have done the job, but this was something special. I could taste it immediately, as if a door I’d never seen had been flung open onto a long, wide landscape of forest, earth and ocean, tall stone pillars clawed with brine and weed, cold starry skies, ancient, candlelit rooms, deep eyes, short lives and whispered promises. I felt as if somebody had filled my head with a thousand years of secret, guarded memories.” A superb debut novel.