Review 126: 2012: The Last Entries by Christina and Judy Ann Eichstedt

2012: The Last Entries
Christina and Judy Ann Eichstedt
139 Pages
Soft cover
ISBN 978-0-557-16375-5
$14.95

I’ll admit it, the frenzy over the 2012 movie convinced me to check out this book. For those of you who have been living under a rock, the year in question was predicted by one of the Mayan calendars to be the last year. According to alarmists, sometime in December of that year, something is going to happen. It may be solar radiation or an asteroid or fire ants and kudzu, but SOMETHING bad is supposed to happen. In 2012: The Last Entries, we follow the last agonizing months of 6 people through their journal entries.

Damon Wakefield is the first character we meet, and the one best prepared for the end of everything. He is a survivalist living in a bunker that he’s constructed in the Northwest. Christine Ashworth is a spoiled college-aged socialite from New York, convinced that her money will protect her from whatever is heading her way. Judith Garbe is an Oklahoma newspaper columnist who loses her job and pines for her children. Joyce Carter finds herself living on the streets in California after losing her job as well. The Reverend Robert Miller is from Atlanta, and his thriving TV ministry is his love in life. Finally, Zoey Ragan is a Nebraska farm wife who is forced into seclusion by the government when her husband contracts smallpox.

Here is a sample from Joyce Carter’s journal:

I knew this was going to happen. My Mother would have called in a “premonition”. Whatever it’s called, I knew I was going to be laid off from my job. I don’t believe it’s anything supernatural or that I psychic abilities at all, the factory I worked in was going under, and so many people had already been laid off. Sooner or later, I knew my turn would come, and it finally did. There is no help for the working people…

The end of the world in this book is an apocalypse of biblical proportions. Plagues, swarms of locusts, meteor strikes, earthquakes, and the accelerating deterioration of civilization are seen through the eyes of these characters, chosen because they are close to the ‘action.’ Month by month, each character logs a journal entry telling us what is happening around them. I honestly found many of the entries to be chilling, because the fabric between civilization and anarchy isn’t as thick as many of us think.

The book is very readable however I kept waiting for the stories to converge, somehow tying them together but they don’t. They are distinct threads that you have to follow from month to month. Some of the characters are pretty self absorbed, others more believable and sympathetic. The book is short so it’s a very quick read. What happens when the last sand spills from the hourglass is left up to our imagination, but the run-up to the end is a prophecy that I very much hope never comes to pass.