The Island of Last Things by Emma Sloley

The first thing to be said about this novel is that the cover is one of the most striking, incredible covers I have ever seen. On a gold background, a furious panther bites a gentle, guiding hand. The absurdity of the panther’s tongue curling around the arm, the bright animal fear in the panther’s eyes... The teeth! This incredible illustration is not an ancient masterpiece (as I first assumed), but a work done by artist Jose David Morales, whom you can follow on Instagram at @jdilustrador.

Alright, enough cover-gush. The Island of Last Things is about a zookeeper named Camille working at the last zoo on Earth and what happens when a charismatic keeper named Sailor comes to work with her.

Sloley makes the fascinating choice to place this zoo on Alcatraz Island. The zoo is privately owned by a family called the Pinktons, who made their fortune off inhalers and respirators. The inhalers and respirators are necessary because the Earth is plagued by mold, climate change, and pollution. San Francisco Bay is full of jellyfish, the only thing that can survive the too-warm water. There are 2,138 animals in Alcatraz Zoo, and they are likely the last 2,138 animals on Earth. Permafires burn, food is scarce, meat is basically unavailable, and people flee from crisis to crisis as the environment withers.

Upon getting the welcome tour, Sailor declares Alcatraz to be “the animal kingdom’s last stand.” Hard-working keeper Camille, a bit of an idealist who loves rules and routine, responds, “We’re giving the animals a future.” Her internal dialogue reveals a more complex opinion:

“The choice, however regrettable, was binary: the remaining animals in the once-wild could either fend for themselves in a world that no longer offered them safety, or they could be cared for in a place like this, where all their material needs were met and there was at least a small hope of securing the survival of their kind. Better to lead a confined life than no life at all.”

Of course, this is a metaphor for Camille's existence, too. With no real connections outside, Camille lives a small life completely confined to the Alcatraz Zoo.

Sailor, meanwhile, is a risk-taker and a dreamer. She tries to improve the animals’ lives in a way that both delights and scares the other keepers. She frees a small bird from the aviary, plants a tomato in the Arboretum, throws a wild party where she illegelly invites an outside musician, and, eventually, hatches a plan to steal Achilles the crocodile and take him to a mysterious sanctuary.

Camille is enamored with Sailor — after all, she’s a follower. A younger Sailor is shown to be the same way in the flashback chapters at the Paris Zoo; she balks at breaking the rules and her fellow zookeepers refer to her as an idealiste. But more than they love rules and respect authority, Camille and Sailor love the animals. They feel a responsibility to them that forces both women to realize what is truly best for the animals in their care, even if it forces them to break the rules.

Young Sailor comes to this conclusion after other zoos keep getting bombed and shut down. She and her fellow Paris zookeepers are faced with an increasingly dangerous situation and no light at the end of the tunnel:

“It was becoming too stark to ignore. There was no better world just waiting for them: they were going to have to go out and make it for themselves."

So they do — the Paris zookeepers risk it all and free an armadillo, smuggling him away to a sanctuary that they can only trust actually exists.

Back in the present, the Alcatraz zookeepers and the billionaire Pinktons try to keep the animals alive in whatever way they can. Sloley doesn't forget the people in this story. We learn from Sailor that “people are mean and hungry, mostly." When Sailor visits the mainland, she observes the "refugees, immigrants, the untethered, people fleeing one calamity only to find themselves snared in another." There are even protesters who object to the zoo's existence, upset at the massive use of resources on animals when there is so much human suffering.

I think the book argues that this effort is not wasteful, even though it is absurd. Maybe it's my own opinion filtering this interpretation, but the book posits that humans cannot just abandon the natural world in the desperate scramble to survive. We are all tied together; our survival is one with theirs. The sanctuary is a good example of this. The sanctuary is not just a place for the animals — it represents hope, which keeps Camille and Sailor going even as they face a blighted world and a desperate situation.

Just like Camille and Sailor, we the readers never quite know if the sanctuary is real or not. During the Paris Zoo flashbacks, we're pretty sure the sanctuary is real. After all, a zookeeper shows Sailor a photo of the freed armadillo in his new home. But when Sailor is on her way to work at Alcatraz Zoo, she isn't able to reach her sanctuary contact, and a bit of doubt creeps in. Sailor's scheme to rescue Achilles once again reinvigorates our belief, only to be cruelly dashed away when it turns out she's being forced to steal Achilles for an aggressive cartel. As Sailor and Camille prepare to free Achilles, Camille begs for stories of the sanctuary to give them strength to pull off the heist. It's heartbreaking, because as the readers we're almost certain the sanctuary doesn't exist.

The sanctuary is not just a refuge for the world's last animals, but also a place where the keepers can envision themselves as part of a better world. Camille loves the idea of the sanctuary and its repositioning of keepers as "stewards." Camille and Sailor clearly see themselves as more than just keepers of the zoo, but as stewards of the animals. This isn't some idealiste concept, however.

Stewardship is really put to the test in this book. Sloley argues that stewardship is arm-in-arm with sacrifice. The culmination of this hypothesis comes together in the final chapters: Sailor is dying of Lyme disease, and Achilles, the crocodile she adores, is dying of malnutrition that cannot be cured by the fake meat the zoo provides. Threatened by a powerful cartel to steal Achilles, Sailor makes an extreme decision and, on the night of the crocodile heist, feeds herself to Achilles.

Sailor’s terminally ill parents, who owned a crocodile park, eventually fed themselves to their crocs, “freely and with immense love.” Thus this option hangs over Sailor, and when the cartel cannot be fended off any longer, she does the same, choosing “the act that had seemed the most natural thing in the world to her. To die in the way one chooses, among the creatures one loves the most.” Camille understands this final horrifying act, even when no one else does:

“No one could understand why a person would do such a thing. Sacrificing yourself for another was something they couldn’t comprehend.”

Sailor is a true steward, it appears.

This was an absolutely crazy twist. I actually had to go back and read it again. As someone who watched far too much Animal Planet, I have an immense fear of crocodiles and this certainly did not help. However, I do think this was incredible writing. This sacrifice prompts formerly cautious and rule-loving Camille to break out of her confined worldview. The hope of the sanctuary doesn't leave her, even once she goes through all of Sailor's stuff and discovers the cartel's threats.

"I like to think part of her sincerely believed the feat was possible... the part about the sanctuary being real, and the possibility of getting Achilles and ourselves there. I think it needed to be possible for her to have peace, and to lend me the courage to do what I’m going to do.”

Camille, inspired by Sailor, makes her own sacrifice as a steward. She leaves Alcatraz Zoo with a small bird from the aviary tucked into her jacket and heads for the sanctuary, never to return. What a fabulous callback to Sailor's freed bird, and how satisfying to see Camille finally leave her small world!

There's so much to say about this book — it's about ownership, privatization, climate change, zoo ethics, exploitation, leading vs. following, dystopia... The Island of Last Things is an exploration of who gets to own the natural world, and argues that no one ought to own it at all, rather, we should all take on stewardship. This stewardship is no light thing, either; it is a stewardship which makes demands and requires sacrifice.

For animal lovers with a conscience, for biologists haunted by climate change, for zookeepers who feel guilty, for environmentalists worried about farmers, for anyone who ever looked at an animal behind the glass... I highly recommend The Island of Last Things.

Book Info

• Title: The Island of Last Things

• Publisher: Flatiron Books/Macmillan

• ISBN: 9781250329240

• Author: Emma Sloley 

• Pub date: Aug 2025

• Source: https://www.edelweiss.plus/?sku=1250329248&g=4400

I recommend pairing this book with a thoughtful listen to Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi.