ŷ������

”’And you’re returning to South Africa after your vacation?��

‘Yes, that’s where we live,�� proud of the fact of it. Away from everyday Nazis and school shootings so regular they were practically part of the academic calendar along with prom and football season, away from the slow gutting of democracy, trigger-happy cops, and the terror of raising a black son in America. But how can you live there, people would ask her (and Devon, her American husband, especially), meaning Johannesburg. Isn’t it dangerous? And she wanted to reply, how can you live here.��

We’ve all been convinced of the exceptionalism of America since we were wee lads and lasses. Not just us Americans, but Europeans, and all across the world. America, the great beacon of hope.

We might need to tweak things a bit.

For Cole and her husband, Devon, and their son, Miles, America is an opportunity to make some money through a lucrative temporary job for Devon and also be able to experience America, before returning to South Africa, but then disaster strikes.

The MANPOCALYPSE.

Well, heck, there is no place better to be in the world than America during a pandemic. Look how well we’ve done with Covid-19��.

We might need to tweak things a bit.

In a matter of months, men are nearly extinct from an aggressive, contagious form of prostate cancer, including Cole’s husband, Devon. 3.2 billion men dead, leaving about roughly 30 to 50 million men in the world. Most of these men are locked up for their own protection. Every man alive is living the life of the rock god Jim Morrison, with women quite literally willing to tear them apart to have them for themselves. It seems cool in the abstract, but in the practical, it becomes pretty damn dangerous to be one of the few remaining men.

”You can’t imagine how much the world can change in six months. You just can’t.��

Well, maybe we can. I think we all had a taste of what it would be like if a high death rate contagion raged across the world. Nothing like this, of course, but I fear that Covid-19 might be just a dress rehearsal for something much worse. Before that happens...

We might need to tweak things a bit.

This is dire. The world is obviously going to take another huge dip in population the longer it takes to find a vaccine. The Reprohibition Act has made it against the law to reproduce. The fear is that the virus will mutate in some new male child and kill off the rest of the men who have so far proven to be immune. I kept thinking to myself as I was reading this...Can a destabilized government really dictate, whether the females who are fortunate enough to still have a dick available to them, to not get pregnant? Hormones are a powerful thing, and I can only imagine the alarm bells going off in women’s heads, with nature itself driving them nearly insane to reproduce. There is also that very natural desire to want to replace those you’ve lost.

Once the collective governments of the world allow “breeding�� again, it won’t take that long to rebuild the population. Losing 3.2 billion women would have put the human race in much deeper jeopardy, but I know from growing up on a farm that a herd bull can impregnate 30 cows with ease, and even as many as 50 without a negative impact on the conception rate. A young male human is capable of far eclipsing those numbers.

Sperm is suddenly...priceless.

This quote from a cult nun, well not a very reverent one, made me chuckle: ”’I think about that now, all that semen wasted. Worth a goddamn fortune now, on the black market.�� Michelle rubbed her belly with both hands, ruefully. ‘I must have swallowed a million dollars�� worth in my time.’��

Women are in charge of everything now, and of course, they, without the heavy hand of males around, are going to build a feminist utopia, right? Well, maybe not. Power vacuums by nature have to be filled, and there are stronger women and weaker women. Stronger women start acquiring the same bad characteristics that women didn’t like in men. Cole has a situation where she feels that power. ”The weight of the shotgun, the cold tang of the metal against her palms, the soft give of flesh as she pressed the wooden stock into the woman’s shoulder, pinning her to the ground. She wanted to do more. She wanted to hit her across the face with it. Feel her nose break.�� We are, by nature, a violent race of people, and women abhor those violent tendencies in men, as they should, but they may prove to be equally susceptible to them if men are no longer in the equation.

I feel that Lauren Beukes did a wonderful job balancing the gains and losses in this book. An unbalanced world is a scary place, no matter who is in charge. A feminist utopia might prove more difficult to achieve than we first imagine.

Cole has been one of the few lucky ones to have a son who is immune. The female gestapo of America lock him up and start doing tests on him. The only pathway to a cure is finding out why some men are naturally immune. She realizes that, if Miles is going to have any kind of life, she needs to break him out and somehow leave America and get back to where they belong, in South Africa. If one is going to be oppressed, one would much rather have it done by their own government.

Her sister, Billie, her most staunch ally, has become her worst enemy. As Cole and Miles flee across the country, hiding out with anarchists and then a cult of nuns, her sister pursues them relentlessly. Twelve year old Miles has one of the most valuable things in the world sprouting between his legs. Cole is determined to give her son as normal a life as she can in this chaotic world. She is going to do her best to make sure he doesn’t end up a sex object, a reproductive source, or a stand in son for some rich asshole who will pay anything to have a replacement son. Billie realizes that Miles is her only chance to hit the lottery, and her sister is just going to have to get out of the way, one way or another. This chase across the country gives Beukes a great opportunity to show the state of things under the new female regime.

I like the bar scene where women are sitting around drinking and watching nostalgia porn...otherwise known as football games, where they can watch men, long dead, clash like titans on the gridiron. There are also bars full of women dressing as men with moustaches, mutton chops, and beards, at least providing the illusion of a man for a male-starved population.

This is being marketed as a feminist, noir thriller, which it certainly is, but I hope men are going to read it as well. I found it to be a fascinating, enjoyable read that left me with much to ponder. Unfortunately, the cover doubles down on a female readership, with the pink and light blue motif, but men, gird your loins and march this book up to the counter and buy it. If I hadn’t already had a relationship with Beuke’s books, which have been great, I probably wouldn’t have given this cover a second look. I would feel the same way as I do about 90% of the commercials on TV...I’m not their target audience. I want to reassure readers, there is as much for men in this book as there is for women. Stephen King raved about this book, calling it a ”splendid new thriller��. I couldn’t agree more.

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