Highly recommended for those who like their paranormal stories cozy and mysterious.
Feature image credit: Scribe Publications
One of the wonderful things about reviewing books is that every now and then a book lands in your lap out of the blue, hooks you immediately, and defies description. The Endling, by Keely Jobe, is one of those books.
It’s a hard book to nail down. Part Picnic at Hanging Rock, part Lord of the Flies, and part Midwich Cuckoos, it alternately revolts, delights and unnerves the reader in the best possible way.
Before the main story begins we are introduced to the endling of the title, an orchid growing in the remote Queensland rainforest which has achieved sentience to the point that it has become aware it is the last of its kind. It has a goal: to procreate and keep the species alive. But how? And with whom?
The story proper then begins with the introduction of Frank, a hermit-among-hermits, a woman for whom the politics and infighting of the female-only retreat in which she lives have become too much. Frank chooses to live up the hill from the rest of the commune, only returning every few months to pick up supplies and to visit her niece, Mila.
Frank’s health is failing dangerously. However, as this becomes apparent, the women of the commune begin to have problems of their own. Each of them discovers they have become pregnant despite the absence of men. The issue of the father is further complicated after the simultaneous birth of many girls and one boy. The children are strange and otherworldly and Mila (the mother of Finch, the boy) begins to suspect the bush that surrounds the camp.
You could be forgiven for thinking that The Endling was little more than a strange sci-fi thriller in the same mould as The Midwich Cuckoos. But where John Wyndham’s classic dealt primarily with the issue of where the ‘cuckoos’ came from, Keely Jobe keeps this deliberately vague. It is this exquisite sense of vagueness that drives the book, keeping the mystery of the children at arm’s length as Mila is constantly confronted by other, more immediate realities to deal with, always suspecting but never being able to turn her full attention to the ever-present issue of the miracle she and the other women of the commune have (literally) borne witness to. The dark heart of the rainforest is a meaningful, almost gothic setting. Absent from the aims and goals of the commune are any form of connection with the land or their surroundings, and this rejection makes the all-pervading presence of the bush a sinister force.
As for the miraculous births the rest of the women (with the exception of Frank, who was not with the group when the mass impregnation occurred) seem to prefer to ignore the matter, dismissing it as something fundamentally unknowable and secondary to political matters within camp. The commune is a hotbed of politics, sexual and social. It is here where Jobe shows her power as a writer as she explores the effects of these politics first on Frank and then on Mila. The women of the commune are all broken in their own way, either discarded by society, their parents, men, or all three, and this is reflected in their rejection of any form of nurturing. We learn that one of the reasons Frank chooses to live by herself is because she has raised an abandoned pup (the noble Chicken Midnight) where pets are banned by the commune, and we see the cruelties perpetuated by the women on Mila, the only one of them to have (or want) any real connection with their ill-begotten children.
The only letdown in an otherwise excellent book is the abruptness of the ending, in which several plot threads are left unresolved. But this in no way diminishes the power of the story, which resonates with an eerie, ethereal menace.
Reviewed by D C White
The views expressed in this review belong to the author and not Glam Adelaide, its affiliates, or employees.
Distributed by: Scribe Publications
Released: March 2026
RRP: $35.00
