About the Book
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.
About the Author :
SANDRA NEWMAN is the author of the novels The Heavens, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and The Country of Ice Cream Star, longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction and named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post and NPR, as well as several other works of fiction and nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in Harper's and Granta, among other publications. She lives in New York City.
Review :
Praise for The Men:
Named a Most Anticipated Book by the Guardian, Irish Times, and Daily Mail
"In Sandra Newman's fifth novel, all human beings and fetuses with a Y chromosome disappear in an instant . . . To create a work of fiction with such a stark premise runs the risk of confronting the reader with a task of reimagining that is hard to see beyond. But although it's true that The Men never allows us to forget its dramatic first principle, numerous other strands and themes emerge: the long aftermath of trauma and coercive control; various manifestations of charisma and complicity; the insidious, dehumanizing effects of a society in thrall to screen representations of reality . . . It is in the exploration of these areas, the hinterland beyond the shock headline, that The Men really intrigues and disturbs . . . It seems too literal to read the book as a simple equation in which the existence of men equals the death of hope for the future, even as one might also argue that the stark set-up makes such a conclusion tricky to avoid . . . At its strongest, however, it is an exploration of attachment, its lure and its peril, and the impossibility of its eradication from human affairs."-Alex Clark, Guardian
"A book whose disturbing imagination reaches through the page into our world."--Naomi Alderman, New York Times Book Review
"A smashing feminist utopia (or dystopia) . . . Newman provides powerful insights on the limits of sacrifice. As all the characters converge, the author introduces startling explanations for the mass disappearance. This is a stunner."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The Men is sure to get people talking . . . This is also a novel, implicitly or explicitly, about plagues, climate and how power is reified by those in charge."--Book Reporter
"This layered, introspective tale will give [readers] plenty to think about and discuss."--Booklist
"The Men, like Newman's previous novel The Heavens, teases us with the idea of utopia. What would we sacrifice to get there? Is it possible for human frailty to create a perfect world? It's a morally hard-edged and grippingly weird fiction. There's a gesture to the feminist sci-fi of Joanna Russ's The Female Man but also to the abysmal imagination of that old lunatic H.P. Lovecraft. And Newman can write a beautiful sentence, the kind that unfolds itself into a small revelation . . . A gripping, haunting novel."--Spectator
"Almost supernaturally propulsive, sometimes very beautiful . . . There are strange things here I am unlikely to forget. Sandra Newman is a genius."--Sarah Perry, author of Melmoth
"Heart-breaking. The Men imagines a better world and what we might have to sacrifice to get there, and, at the same time, it's a brilliantly constructed sci-fi thriller, with a premise that hooks you in with a horrifying grip. I loved it."--Bridget Collins, author of The Betrayals
"Superb. A novel of hypnotic power and breadth from one of the most supple, dynamic voices around. Newman's talents never fail to impress me."--Irenosen Okojie, author of Butterfly Fish
Praise for The Heavens:
Named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times, NPR, Guardian, Literary Hub, Electric Lit, Observer, Kirkus Reviews, Washington Independent Review of Books, and Tor.com
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
"Heady and elegant . . . The Heavens is something of a chameleon, a strange and beautifu
