47North, October 11, 2016.
Five Stars
In San Francisco, an obstetric nurse notices an
alarming trend – an increase in women becoming dangerously ill and dying during
childbirth, along with their newborn babies. At the same time, more and more
people of both genders begin to succumb to this fatal fever, and the unnamed
nurse is one of them. When she wakes up in the hospital, everyone around her is
dead and the world has changed forever.
We learn from various sources that the fever has killed
approximately 99% of the earth’s population – and only about 1% of the
survivors are women. Live childbirth is now nonexistent, leaving the world with
no future and no hope of salvation. For the unnamed protagonist, this new world
is threatening and violent – the surviving men are dangerous and wish to
control the few women who remain. The midwife ventures from the hospital to her
home – where she narrowly survives a vicious attack – to the now unpopulated
city of San Francisco, and eventually into the wider world. She wanders
aimlessly, uncertain of the purpose of her existence, and as she explores our
decimated planet, we witness the atrocities of humanity alongside her.
With the end of civilization as we know it comes a
new structure of power – gangs of men who capture the rare surviving women and
keep them enslaved. They are raped and often tortured, as these men act out their
urges to control and subjugate women. The misogyny in this new world mirrors
that of our own, except it can be enacted without repercussions. To avoid this
fate, the unnamed midwife hides her femininity by binding her breasts and
wearing masculine clothing. She gives out fake names and identifying details,
so that we only slowly learn the truth about her life before the fever.
Most of the midwife’s journey is explored through her
journal entries, which are rambling and emotional, and always feel authentic.
In this way, we gradually get to know who she really is, and who she is
becoming in this new world. She eventually discovers a greater role for herself
in defense of women and their fertility options – she collects and distributes
birth control, and guides women who have already conceived through the process,
which often ends badly. It is not until the end that she finds a glimmer of
hope for the progression of humankind.
The midwife’s journal entries are alternated with
passages told by an omniscient narrator, whose words are clinical, detached and
heartbreaking as they describe the fates of the people that the midwife meets
along her journey. In particular, we learn the fate of the midwife’s boyfriend,
who disappeared after she was presumed dead from the fever. Recalling their
life together keeps the midwife grounded, yet she doesn’t learn how close they
were to each other until it is much too late. Although she refers often to this
heterosexual relationship, the midwife’s own sexuality is fluid, and it affects
her interactions with the men and women she meets in unexpected ways.
This novel inevitably invites comparison to other books
and movies in the post-apocalyptic genre. For me, it was especially similar to
the first few moments of awakening in The
Walking Dead – but instead of zombies, the threat is human, as men turn on
women with violence and disrespect. In an overdone genre, this novel is fresh
and exciting. It moves at a slower pace than we are used to, but it is filled
with real moments that are dark, gritty and all too possible.
I received this book from 47North and NetGalley in
exchange for an honest review.
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