THE MEN, by Sandra Newman (Granta, $32.99)
The blurb of The Men asks: "What if the price of a better world was losing the person you love?" Early on, the narrator, Jane, imagines an alternative present in which she is single. Is this an indication of how we might read the novel?
There is a kind of a joke reading of the novel where everything that happens is a reflection of Jane's ambivalence about being a stay-at-home mother. I'm always trying to shoehorn more ideas into my novels, and here it's about mundane personal discontents and how hard it can be to tell if they really are normal. Is it normal that being a stay-at-home mother is isolating and often boring? Or is it the malign result of a cruel patriarchal system that needs to be dismantled? What calls for a political solution and what just calls for a glass of wine at the end of the day? How do you know when your life is good enough?
On the face of it, the novel is a kind of Rapture meets radical feminist utopia. Although, for a utopia, it is pretty sombre in places, given the inevitable mourning of all the Y chromosome people. What would you personally most miss and not miss?
This story is from the June 11 - 17, 2022 edition of New Zealand Listener.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the June 11 - 17, 2022 edition of New Zealand Listener.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Morning songs
On a recent early and glorious Saturday morning - it was 4°C outside I let the complaining chickens out. Chickens never stop complaining.
Upwardly mobile
Climate-friendly e-scooters are proliferating but there are stumbling blocks for users and non-users.
A potent brew
There's a correlation between moderate coffee drinking and reduced risk of colorectal cancer - but evidence of a causal link is still percolating.
Food saviours
A little bit of silliness lightens the mood on the serious topic of food waste.
Ode to old masters
The Polynesian sound and Auckland's ska-punk scene are remembered in new releases.
Weaving Welsh with waiata
Te reo meets Cymraeg in a musical project partly spearheaded by Kawiti Waetford, an opera singer with connections to Wales.
Culture warrior
Activist and scholar Ngahuia te Awek6otuku achieved several firsts in society but had to fight many battles to get there.
An age-old problem
Is our lifespan fixed, or might we be able to slow down or even abolish ageing? And what would we do if we could?
When Jim becomes James
'What would white people do to a slave who had learned to read?' This impressive reimagining of Huckleberry Finn seeks to find out.
Manhattan transfer
A Kiwi movie star led the charge for an Anzac garden atop New York's Rockefeller Centre that's still in use today.