The Pharmacist

The most gripping and unforgettable debut

By: Rachelle Atalla

Narrated by: Amy Manson

A beautifully-written dystopian thriller set in an underground bunker.

The bunker is a place of safety.

Wolfe is the bunker's resident pharmacist. While the inhabitants wait for the outside world to heal, she doles out ibuprofen, sanitary towels and Xanax - all under the watchful eye of the increasingly erratic and paranoid leader.

The bunker is a place of hope.

But when the leader starts to ask things of Wolfe, favours she can hardly say no to, her world is thrown off its axis once again. Forming an unlikely alliance with the young Doctor Stirling, her troubled assistant Levitt, and Canavan - a tattooed giant of a man who's purpose in the bunker is a mystery - Wolfe has to navigate the powder keg of life underground, knowing her every move is being watched.

The bunker is a place of survival.

It's not long before Wolfe is forced to question the sacrifices she's made for her own personal survival, and how much more she is willing to give to stay alive.

The bunker is a place of danger.

(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited©2022 Rachelle Atalla

Critic reviews

A compulsive, claustrophobic but wonderfully compassionate read, beautifully written and set within a brilliantly realised world. Rachelle Atalla is a major talent and I can't wait to see where her mind goes next

An unflinching portrayal of what we might all be capable of, Atalla's stunning debut is essential reading for our times

Atalla's speculative literary thriller debut draws you in with its mounting sense of tension, disquiet and desperation

There are shades of George Orwell in this stunning writing debut, but Rachelle Atalla's voice is highly original. And wholly her own

This horrendously claustrophobic, utterly absorbing debut. The fiercely controlled narrative beautifully translates the horrendous grip of dismal routines and tiny, stolen pleasures

Sitting somewhere on the spectrum between Paul Auster's heart-rending In the Country of Last Things and Bong Joon-ho's pulse-thumping film Snowpiercer, The Pharmacist is a slow-burn nightmare about how ordinary human decency gets eroded - and also how it perseveres

Rachelle Atalla is obviously a talented and gifted writer

Reminiscent of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, this unsettling story is a nightmare for our times of end-of-the-world prepping, increased nuclear insecurity and political inequality

A breathtaking, tense debut. *****

It's really remarkable how she makes this bland, bleak, limited world so vivid and engrossing

Rachelle Atalla's debut is a thought-provoking addition to the post-apocalyptic genre

The twists and turns in this brilliantly written, post-apocalyptic tale make for compulsive reading

Atalla nails the atmosphere of claustrophobia and brings this world to life convincingly, as well as fostering sympathy for her protagonist, despite her flaws. This debut author is one to watch

Dystopian fiction, yes, but so much more. This book forces its readers to consider what it means to be good or evil, what motivates us to act as we do, and what matters to us in the end. A wonderful mix of tense drama and provocative ideas, I loved it

The Pharmacist is the perfect dystopian novel. Post-apocalyptic fiction masterfully handled. Addictive, claustrophobic, tense. I'm obsessed with this novel. Easily in my top reads this year

The Pharmacist is a confident debut, in which Rachelle Atalla fully lives up to the promise of her New Writers Award . . . This literary thriller is highly original, asking difficult questions about morality and motherhood. And its claustrophobic atmosphere perfectly reflects the setting.

Rachelle Atalla's elegant debut novel is a compelling account of a society whose rigid inhumanity is pierced with glimmers of hope

Be ready to go underground

This book. By the end I felt like I’d been living in that bunker with Wolf, Levitt, and Sterling.
The anxiety was nearly crippling and I almost couldn’t finish. The author does an amazing
job of pulling you into the story and feeling all the complicated emotions that would accompany
trying to survive nuclear fall out in a bunker full of strangers. The soul searing loss of privacy
and the devastating physical effects of living without sunlight….every detail is captured with
poignancy and a truth bared down to its bones. I felt the ending was a little abrupt, but it does
not keep me from recommending it. (Not a family member or friend of the author - I always wonder
about that when I see first reviews.)