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A review by katykelly
The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird
5.0
Heart-rending, prophetic, and puts the last year into perspective.
I don't remember crying so many times during one book. One or two tears, yes. But this had me bawling at regular intervals. The pain and horror of this man-centric pandemic was absolutely devastating to follow.
The structure brings home the international havoc, the agony and the chaos inflicted by something so similar and yet so different to our own last year on the planet.
From Scotland, an innocuous start spreads chillingly fast and chillingly predictably. The author wrote this in the months before COVID-19 slapped us all out of our oblivious trivialities, but manages to show both what could have been and in some ways, what has been.
A Scottish doctor notices worrying symptoms in a male patient that the hospital staff are unable to save. The sky-high fever is replicated in another male, with no connection between the two. Seeing the start of something much bigger, she dutifully follows pandemic procedure but is rebuffed or dismissed.
And so begins the end of the world. Or for those with that particular mix of chromosomes: XY. Women carry it, but they don't die. Only men.
If it weren't for the context of 2020, this novel would still be chilling and a stark warning to the world. As it is, it's chillingly prophetic and immensely immersive. We don't follow any one character or story, but the story of the world and individuals coping with their personal and wider losses.
Mothers losing their sons, husbands staying away from families to contain the spread. Scientists working on vaccines. Politicians rebuilding. A battered wife desperate for her husband to catch the virus and die. Men trapped on a boat in the ocean with few supplies hoping they can outlast it. Conspiracy theorists. And we see terms and objects now so familiar that they seem shockingly out of place in a book from before last year: social distancing, people sat two metres apart. Face masks.
We return time and again to key stories. We see the before, during and after. Each of which are rather fascinating in 2021 context, particularly the author's take on how countries cope in the midst of the pandemic and how societies begin to function and rebuild when the worst is seen to be over. The post-pandemic world is society in reverse and gives a lot of pause for thought.
The reader will most likely do as I did and feel almost broken reading this, but then look up and around and feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude that things in the real world weren't worse than they are.
'Powerful' doesn't even begin to convey this book, this story, this situation and these lives. This will not be something everyone is ready to read, or wants to read. If you do, be prepared for a lot of emotion. But it's worth it to see how the story ends...
With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.
I don't remember crying so many times during one book. One or two tears, yes. But this had me bawling at regular intervals. The pain and horror of this man-centric pandemic was absolutely devastating to follow.
The structure brings home the international havoc, the agony and the chaos inflicted by something so similar and yet so different to our own last year on the planet.
From Scotland, an innocuous start spreads chillingly fast and chillingly predictably. The author wrote this in the months before COVID-19 slapped us all out of our oblivious trivialities, but manages to show both what could have been and in some ways, what has been.
A Scottish doctor notices worrying symptoms in a male patient that the hospital staff are unable to save. The sky-high fever is replicated in another male, with no connection between the two. Seeing the start of something much bigger, she dutifully follows pandemic procedure but is rebuffed or dismissed.
And so begins the end of the world. Or for those with that particular mix of chromosomes: XY. Women carry it, but they don't die. Only men.
If it weren't for the context of 2020, this novel would still be chilling and a stark warning to the world. As it is, it's chillingly prophetic and immensely immersive. We don't follow any one character or story, but the story of the world and individuals coping with their personal and wider losses.
Mothers losing their sons, husbands staying away from families to contain the spread. Scientists working on vaccines. Politicians rebuilding. A battered wife desperate for her husband to catch the virus and die. Men trapped on a boat in the ocean with few supplies hoping they can outlast it. Conspiracy theorists. And we see terms and objects now so familiar that they seem shockingly out of place in a book from before last year: social distancing, people sat two metres apart. Face masks.
We return time and again to key stories. We see the before, during and after. Each of which are rather fascinating in 2021 context, particularly the author's take on how countries cope in the midst of the pandemic and how societies begin to function and rebuild when the worst is seen to be over. The post-pandemic world is society in reverse and gives a lot of pause for thought.
The reader will most likely do as I did and feel almost broken reading this, but then look up and around and feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude that things in the real world weren't worse than they are.
'Powerful' doesn't even begin to convey this book, this story, this situation and these lives. This will not be something everyone is ready to read, or wants to read. If you do, be prepared for a lot of emotion. But it's worth it to see how the story ends...
With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.