The Men
Books | Fiction / Literary
Sandra Newman
From the author of The Heavens, a dazzling, mindbending novel in which all people with a Y chromosome mysteriously disappear from the face of the earth Deep in the California woods on an evening in late August, Jane Pearson is camping with her husband Leo and their five-year-old son Benjamin. As dusk sets in, she drifts softly to sleep in a hammock strung outside the tent where Leo and Benjamin are preparing for bed. At that moment, every single person with a Y chromosome vanishes around the world, disappearing from operating theaters mid-surgery, from behind the wheels of cars, from arguments and acts of love. Children, adults, even fetuses are gone in an instant. Leo and Benjamin are gone. No one knows why, how, or where. After the Disappearance, Jane forces herself to enter a world she barely recognizes, one where women must create new ways of living while coping with devastating grief. As people come together to rebuild depopulated industries and distribute scarce resources, Jane focuses on reuniting with an old college girlfriend, Evangelyne Moreau, leader of the Commensalist Party of America, a rising political force in this new world. Meanwhile, strange video footage called "The Men" is being broadcast online showing images of the vanished men marching through barren, otherworldly landscapes. Is this just a hoax, or could it hold the key to the Disappearance? From the author of The Heavens, The Men is a gripping, beautiful, and disquieting novel of feminist utopias and impossible sacrifices that interrogates the dream of a perfect society and the conflict between individual desire and the good of the community.
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More Details:
Author
Sandra Newman
Pages
263
Publisher
Grove Press
Published Date
2022
ISBN
0802159664 9780802159663
Community ReviewsSee all
"Once you get past the hook — all men and boys disappear from the face of the planet — the story plods excessively through backstories. I gave up. DNF 28%"
Diane Morello
"Some graphic disturbing content and I HATED the ending but overall good, my favorite parts where when women were rebuilding the women only society and both adults and girls were freely and safety wandering outside. Wish that were me!!"
Adalheid Ónora
"Overall, this book is okay, and I still find myself thinking about certain aspects of it. I think it is a unique story, for being a frequently used dystopian trope, and it managed to surprise me with cleaver spins, unique characters, and truly bizarre details that no one has ever used before. I enjoyed seeing how society thrived without the men, making it a little less dystopian and a little more like paradise. The book uses a lot of flashbacks of the main characters lives before the event which gives this book more of a social commentary/literary fiction spin and less of the dystopian fiction book I thought I was picking up. The beginning had religious undertones and thinking of the “rapture” made the book feel slightly misogynistic. There were a few times where I found myself questioning wording in the book and I had to double check that it was written by a woman. So, I’m torn because I almost DNF the book in the beginning but by the end I find myself having somewhat enjoyed it. I would recommend finishing the book before judging it because it really is something different and something new. Not all books are made for all people. I see why the trans community would be upset by some depictions in this book (because I was) but in the end, I think the topic of sex was addressed in the way the author thought believable for her world. The author could have chosen to never address it and erased the existence of hundreds of thousands of people or she could try. In the end it is a work of fiction, this is the world she created."
Nicole Falche