A review by emilybryk
Free Men by Katy Simpson Smith

3.0

I think part of my problem here is the way the central story is set out. Le Clerc, etc. spends a lot of time wondering WHY these three men are traveling together, WHY they might be interacting, WHY they might tolerate each other. Knowing what I do (limited as it may be) about this particular time period and this particular location, it's a fair question. The problem is this: there isn't really much of a reason, aside from the general "because they sort of ran into each other and then whatever they were all kind of lonely." I get it. The answer is humanity and The Brotherhood Of Man and all that. But I never felt like there was a really compelling moment for any of them, for me. Nothing about this felt inevitable.

Now, it doesn't need inevitability. But when a major component of the story is about the strangeness of this particular grouping, it needs to be a pretty compelling piece. It's not.