The Way the World Ends

Series: Warmer Collection

By: Jess Walter / Narrated By: Dan John Miller

Length: 1 hr and 27 mins

A “warm cup of Screw You,” with a glorious Ray of Sunshine at the end. Plus? HiLARious!!!

I always check out the Boo! Reviews over on Amazon before I write my reviews, esPECially if I’m about to rave rapturously about a particular story. You know, in case I completely dismissed something egregious as I was listening. And so I hotfooted it over cuz I’m DYING to Huzzah! the beJESus outta The Way the World Ends, and I was bemused to find the Odd. I mean, WHY do Climate Change Deniers feel it necessary to read/listen to works about/inspired by global climate trends?!? Then they feel it behooves them to leave negative reviews based on the fact that they’ve personally not been annihilated, that however depleted and blighted coastlines are, well, they still exist. Therefore it’s all a hum, and we should avoid jolly little ditties like this, like the plague(s) which aaaaaare… not? Covid?… occurring?

Anyhoo—just m’ reaction to THAT sort of negative review. Which, if one considers it, is quite a hoot!

Onto this glorious little not quite 1 1/2-hour gem of a Listen.

Big Sis and I both tackled Last Stories by William Trevor and this as a sorta homage to The End of 2023; you know: Endings, get it? But after listening to the dear departed Mr. Trevor’s final words to us all, both Sis and I were in DIRE need of… SOMEthing. Cuz just how many hearts o’ darknesses can a person really listen to, especially all in one go? We needed LIGHT! We needed The End of the WORLD for cripes sake!

We needed, ahem, author Jess Walter’s special brand of writing, story-crafting, and huzzah! that Walter still exists along with the aforementioned coastlines!

The worst storm in, like, forEVER, has hit Mississippi. Freezing rain, lashing winds, trees down, meetings and flights cancelled. Three individuals are about to have their paths run into each other. Anna, a middle-aged scientist considering a job in Mississippi to be closer to her erstwhile boyfriend who took a job in Blighted and DOOOOOMED Miami… for cripes sake. She’s just interviewed at the University, but as she’s no teaching experience, things are looking… doooooomed. Rowan (sp?), another interviewee, WITH teaching experience, runs into her at the Campus Starbucks, and tells her, far from him getting the position open/shut? Well, he kinda sorta self-sabotaged by reacting most strongly to being called a Climate Zealot. Too late he realized that his reaction was being gauged: It’s Mississippi, after all, and how’s he going to react to being called just that thing?

And young Jeremiah, a student who’s just recently Come Out and is considering how far the Campus Pride group should go in a Pride March. The Uber conservative town fathers have denied their Permit, and everybody’s got opinions. He just happens to be at his Work Study job when Anna and Rowan get back to Campus housing for Visitors, somewhat Three Sheets To The Wind (And a Pillowcase Or Two).

What happens later is a good deal of hiLARious nonsense involving more booze, Climate Catastrophe Disrobing, more stripteases, and just a good old-fashioned The Way The World Ends Drunken Debauchery. Along the way, Jeremiah finds himself reconsidering all he knows about Life, all he thinks about the Future. After all, these scientists KNOW Doom, and they’re partying, along with a couple of Professors caught in the storm of the century, like there’s no Tomorrow. Cuz to them? There IS NO TOMORROW…

Throughout this, Walter’s writing is beYONd clever, but Clever in a good way. It’s wickedly funny writing that isn’t self-indulgent in the least, with a light self-mockery as to inspire guffaws and gales of Outta Control laughter. And narrator Dan John Miller? Wickedly hilarious performance as Jeremiah sees things he can never un-see. Whether it was a drunken Anna who will NOT freeze her eggs as every child born is a Climate Disaster in the making, or it was a drunken Rowan who does NOT know the names to various Disaster songs, or it was an earnest Jeremiah, who’d like to be bold, but who knows he’s just a Newly Outta The Closet Brown kid from Louisiana who does NOT need a Rap Sheet, thank you very much, all you White Liberals who think he should Pride March it straight into Town without a Permit, Miller conveyed each well-developed (Seriously! Such grand development for such a short Short Story!) character wryly, but with sensitivity and a whole helluva lotta Heart. The characters were to die for! Well done, sir!

But mostly? Yeah yeah yeah, it’s a great performance, but it was the writing that made me snort with laughter, and which ultimately charmed my socks off. Yeah DOOOOOM! -but- a Ray of Sunshine known as HOPE. Brilliantly crafted, this little gem is a standout of, yes! the weeeeeek! But? Also of this whole blighted year which saw Change come to the Audiobook Accomplice Family, which saw the Passings of two MUCH-LOVED Fuzzy Accomplices, Rodie and Drake.

2023 is done, y’all.

Welcome 2024… may you be filled with kindness and Change that does NOT bring us to our very knees.

Oh, and MORE FUN LISTENS, pleeeeeeeze…?!?

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