The Silver Crown by Robert C. O'Brien
Copyright 1968

By D. D. "Doc" Shade   —   January 7, 2002

Ann Burden is alone and she is scared. She is also a remarkable woman in spite of her girlish years (not quite 16 in the beginning of the novel). The world as we know it has ended by nuclear disaster. We are, appropriately, given little to no details of the war, because that's not what this book is about. Z is about the inner strength of women, and how it rises to the surface when faced with horrible adversity and circumstances. After reading Z you may still think of women as the fairer sex, but you will also know them to be the revered gender. I've already reviewed one book, The Disappearance by Philip Wylie, where women proved to be better survivors when left without men (as opposed to the men who were separated from women).

Ann has survived because she lives is a deep valley surrounded by an enormous mountain range. I picture it to be somewhere out west in the Rockies. While reading the book I am often reminded of my walks across Brigham Young University campus between classes. It always amazed me that some of the highest peaks were still snow capped in late June and early July. I picture Ann's valley to be somewhat like the valley wherein Provo, Utah and BYU can be found. However, Ann's mountains are so closely packed together, and so tall, that the wind and storms fail to carry the deadly radiation into the valley. The rest of the nation is a charred and barren wasteland while Ann's valley is fertile and verdant. The circumstances that leave Ann alone in this valley are almost comical, but are so also true to human nature. We just have to know, don't we? And we have to see it with our own eyes, right? We just can't let sleeping dogs lie.

In this beautiful valley surrounded by majestic mountains, Ann lives in her parent's house on the family farm. She has everything she needs to survive (i.e., cows, chickens, fields to grow food) except human companionship. Ann has, however, come to terms with being alone for the rest of her life and is somewhat excited (yet wary) the day Mr. Loomis comes walking over the mountain. His green plastic suit covers him completely as he pulls a cart covered in plastic tarp of the same color. Mr. Loomis' arrival changes everything.

Robert C. O'Brien is the master of writing about surviving alone, and of his three major books; Z and The Silver Crown are his best portraits of women. He paints with a very fine brush and his small strokes cover every detail. The reader is held captive from one page to the next watching Ann Burden deal with tragedy and loss. The reader is plunged into Ann's world as she spins ever deeper toward total disaster but, amazingly, without despair. Ann just keeps on going. She's like the Energizer Bunny only tougher and smarter. I like to think I know a little bit about women. After all, I've been married to the same one for 23 years. In my area of social science, a research study with only one subject is not considered reliable and valid unless that one subject has been studied intensely for a long, long time. I've been watching and taking mental notes.

I've watched my wife 'keep on going' through the tragic birth of one son who requires total custodial care of us. I observed her when the nurses in the infant intensive care unit told her that James would never drink from a bottle. She said, "Oh yes! He will!" I further observed her when the physical and occupational therapists at his school told her that James would never drink from a cup. She said, "Oh yes! He will!" and never gave up till he did. It has been one thing after another with him all the 18 years of his life. From operations, to loosen hamstrings, to wiring a stainless steel rod to his spinal cord. He has degenerated from having extra nourishment fed through a tube threaded through his nose and into his stomach to being totally fed though a tube directly connected to his stomach via a 'button.' Still she does not despair. Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day she keeps going on. There is something that Ann Burden and my wife share which Robert C. O'Brien has captured on paper. I, however, am incapable of giving it a label. An early pioneer leader (around 1840) once said "the first to ever do a good thing is a woman" and that men are carnal and devilish by nature. Z For Zachariah proves him correct.

Where am I going with this? you ask, and I say that I have long known that women were the stronger sex. From the moment of conception they have the advantage (and I'm not even going to discuss sexed linked chromosomal problems as a result of having a 'y' chromosome - that's a dissertation). If you have a miscarriage, there is a 90% chance the embryo or fetus was male because males are genetically flawed from conception on. More male babies are still-born, die in infancy, have a greater chance of suffering some congenital problem, fail to thrive or die in childhood. More males die of wild and crazy accidents between birth and the end of puberty. Hey, there's a reason why my sons are paying premium dollars for auto insurance and my daughter is not. Finally, because women are naturally healthier and do not have the male propensity for heart disease and cancer, they live longer. Statically men should marry a woman 5 to 10 years older so that they can spend more of their life together. Most wives end up widows for their last twenty years or so.

So, I'll stop beating the dead horse and hope I have established that women are special. God made man first and immediately improved upon the design. Ann Burden has a spark of fire inside her that makes her fight to survive. The difference between Ann and Mr. Loomis is that Ann fights fair and Mr. Loomis has no . . . well, you had better read the book.

One final, good thing about this book is that it is a great book for introducing people to post-apocalyptic science fiction, whether they are old or young. Especially those who are a bit wimpy and would not survive such classics as No Blade of Grass by John Christopher, or Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, or newer works such as Shade's Children by Garth Nix.* Although dark in its subject matter, Z For Zachariah is palatable for most readers. Awful things happen almost before you realize what has gone down. I have read this book so many times I've lost count. I keep five on hand at all times to loan or give away. The character played by Mel Gibson in the movie Conspiracy Theory felt compelled to buy a copy of The Catcher In The Rye whenever he saw it. I'm compelled to buy copies of Z whether I'm in a used bookstore or Borders or Barnes & Noble -- you just can't have enough copies of Z For Zachariah. It seems to be the kind of book that cycles through your life and speaks to you saying, "It's time to read me again."

The Silver Crown is also about a young woman, this time only ten, who must fight against terrible and mysterious odds. Like Ann, Ellen's story starts with terrible tragedy. On her tenth birthday her house burns down and she loses her entire family. Alone, but determined, she sets out to find her Aunt Sarah in Kentucky. Along the way she has many strange adventures, not the least of which has to do with the silver crown she found in her bedroom the morning of her birthday -- the day her family died.

I must admit that I was somewhat disappointed in the first half of "The Silver Crown." The plot is excellent, and so is the character development, but the story doesn't really get started until page 200. The first 200 pages are about two children wandering in the woods (the other child is Otto, a boy about Ellen's age whom she meets on her journey). There is purpose to the wandering because while doing so they discover many clues and meet several people who will all prove to be instrumental in helping Ellen save Otto and reunite with her family. Still, this section of the book lacked the 'page turner' quality of Z For Zachariah.

Ellen is easily Ann Burden's equal. She is daring, fiery, and quick to act with the same kind of inner strength and instinct for appropriate action. I remember when my son Jason was three and fell down the basement steps, cutting a gash in his scalp. Blood was spurting out and my first instinct was to call for help. My wife's first instinct was to put pressure on the wound until the bleeding stopped. In addition, Ellen faces a host of evil men, including a deceitful fifteen-year-old young man who is king of the black castle. She is imprisoned in that castle and must escape to save Otto and the other children (yes, you'll have to read the book). Ellen must discover the secret to a truly ingenious machine that is governed by the silver crown that belongs to Ellen, and the black crown the King wears.

It is the history of the machine's creations and its inner working that is perhaps Robert C. O'Brien's most clever invention and propels the second half of the novel. There is enough story around this machine for a sequel or even a trilogy. And mind you, this all happens between page 200 and page 322. There's a little Stephen King in Robert C. O'Brien. I can see it clearly in Mr. Loomis. The machine in The Silver Crown, which is directing the creation of others of its kind, is somewhat reminiscent of Christine, or the machine in Graveyard Shift, or of those in Maximum Overdrive (although King has a tendency to put that story down).

I highly recommend both of these young adult works of speculative fiction to you. The Silver Crown is truly worth reading even though I docked its score for the first 200 pages. A quick look at the reader reviews of The Silver Crown on Amazon.com clearly indicates that I am alone in my major complaint. Most people gave it five stars and raved on and on.

Z For Zachariah is an American Library Association Notable Book and the Winner of The Edgar Allan Poe Award. As far as I can tell, The Silver Crown did not win recognition, whereas Mrs. Frisby And The Rats of Nimh was a Newbery Medal winner. Mrs. Frisby, by the way, is another story about a woman, mouse or no, alone.

Perhaps O'Brien, who died of a heart attach in 1973, learned so much about women from observing his own wife and three daughters (he also had one son). O'Brien seems to have drawn heavily from his life experiences; a troubled childhood, a love for the out-of-doors and a farm he moved his family to when he was a reporter in Washington, DC. I also discovered at Amazon.com that O'Brien is the author of another book, A Report From Group 17, which I have not read to date. For more information about Robert C. O'Brien visit:

http://www.edupaperback.org/pastbios/Obrienr.html

http://www.wpi.edu/~boris/zforz/rco.html

Most interesting to readers, young and old, is the Z for Zachariah Nuclear Comparison Page (http://www.WPI.EDU/~boris/zforz/) where one can compare the nuclear disaster in Z For Zachariah with what it would be like if it happened now. There is a ton of information about O'Brien and his writing at this web site.

* Z For Zachariah was recommended to me by a friend who is very selective about her post-apocalyptic fiction. I love her for a great many things but will always remember the day she gave me a copy of Z.

The Horn Book, June 1975, p. 276-277

A posthumous novel by a Newbery Medal winner, finished from his notes--according to the dust jacket--by his wife and his daughter. Postulating an atomic war which devastates most of the United States, if not the world, the author tells of the survival and conflict of two human beings--a girl of sixteen and a mature young man. Ann Burden, left alone in a green valley, a pocket untouched by fallout, keeps a diary telling how she continued to live in her family home, cared for her cows and chickens, and tended her vegetable garden. The sudden appearance of John Loomis, a chemist from Cornell, in a plastic "safe-suit" which had enabled him to travel unscathed from Ithaca, New York, to Ann's uncontaminated enclave, arouses ambivalent feelings in the girl--suspicion of the stranger and a desire for companionship. Despite her tender care for him during a prolonged illness, once he is well, he shows himself to be insensitive and domineering, and he actually tries to take advantage of her by brute force. Ingenious and resourceful, Ann manages to avoid him and steals the safe-suit. She leaves the valley hoping to find another place with life still in it, triumphant at having rejected and avoided the domination of mere mechanical power. The combination of a survival story and science fiction creates a significant background for a dramatic novel, in which two characters are pitted against one another: Ann with her closeness to earth, her love of nature and of books, her religious feelings; John Loomis with his rational engineering skills and his ruthless will to exploit his surroundings. The title of the book is aptly allusive. Ann tells how she had learned the alphabet in Sunday School "from a picture book called The Bible Letter Book. The first page said 'A is for Adam...the last page of all was 'Z is for Zachariah,' and...for a long time I assumed that Zachariah must be the last man." P.H.

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