The End of Men
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By Christina Sweeney-Baird
avg rating
2 reviews
‘A FIERCELY INTELLIGENT PAGE-TURNER’ PAULA HAWKINS
‘WRITTEN PRE-COVID – GRIPPING, SCARY AND PERSUASIVE’ IAN RANKIN ‘THE STUFF THAT CLASSICS ARE MADE OF’ A.J. FINN ‘GRIPPING AND BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN. WHAT A DEBUT!’ SARAH PEARSE, author of The Sanatorium ‘BRILLIANT, PRESCIENT, UNPUTDOWNABLE’ JENNY COLGAN ‘AN ENGROSSING DEBUT’ STYLIST ‘HUGE IN SCOPE…AS TENSE AS THE TAUTEST THRILLER’ RED ‘THE MOST BUZZED-ABOUT FICTION FOR 2021’ SUNDAY TIMES STYLE ‘AN UNFLINCHINGLY PACY MUST-READ’ GRAZIA ‘AN UNFORGETTABLE DEBUT’PRIMAGLASGOW, 2025. Dr Amanda Maclean is called to treat a young man with a mild fever. Within three hours he dies. The mysterious illness sweeps through the hospital with deadly speed. This is how it begins. The victims are all men. Dr Maclean raises the alarm, but the sickness spreads to every corner of the globe. Threatening families. Governments. Countries. Can they find a cure before it’s too late? Will this be the story of the end of the world – or its salvation? Compelling, confronting and devastating, The End of Men is the novel that everyone is talking about.
‘A POWERFUL, GRIPPING BOOK THAT HAS MADE ME FEEL A LITTLE BIT BETTER ABOUT THE WORLD WE ARE LIVING IN RIGHT NOW’ BRYONY GORDON ‘FRIGHTENINGLY PRESCIENT… A COMPELLING, MOVING AND INTELLIGENT PAGE-TURNER’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING ‘A TOUR DE FORCE – A FEMINIST REIMAGINING OF SOCIETY’ GILLIAN MCALLISTER ‘COMPELLING AND HEART-BREAKING. A REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT’ ABI DARÉ ‘PACY, EMOTIVE, THOUGHT-PROVOKING AND ULTIMATELY A REMINDER OF THE STRENGTH OF LOVE AND HUMAN CONNECTION’ C.D. MAJOR ‘A REMARKABLY PRESCIENT, WHIP-SMART, AND STRANGELY HOPEFUL NOVEL’ CHARLOTTE PHILBY ‘DEVASTATING, PRESCIENT, COMPELLING AND CONFRONTING’ LAURA JANE WILLIAMS ‘GRIPPING, MOVING AND SCARILY PRESCIENT. COULDN’T PUT IT DOWN’ CHARLOTTE NORTHEDGE, AUTHOR OF THE HOUSE GUEST ‘MOVING, THOUGHT-PROVOKING AND TERRIFYINGLY PRESCIENT’ TAMMY COHEN ‘TOPICAL, TIMELY, IMAGINATIVE AND ULTIMATELY HOPEFUL’ KATIE KHAN, AUTHOR OF HOLD BACK THE STARS ‘AN INCREDIBLE ACHIEVEMENT – BOTH A BREATH-TAKING FEAT OF IMAGINATION AND A WISE, STEADY EYE ON THE WORLD AS IT IS’ JESSICA MOOR, AUTHOR OF THE KEEPER Tweet
Reviews
I found it in equal measures gripping, frightening and beautiful. It's the story of a disaster which creeps in almost unnoticed, carried on the wings of what seems to be an ordinary flu virus.
The novel starts with Amanda, a female A&E doctor in Glasgow, treating a middle-aged man with severe flu symptoms, who dies almost immediately. That, in itself, is not immediately a cause of concern, but when she connects up this with a handful of other deaths she starts to worry. Her concern is dismissed as hysteria by the middle management in NHS Scotland, and the opportunity to save the world is lost. Because this flu is no flu. It is a savage illness which attacks and kills only men, while women (who are carriers) remain quite safe.
Later there’s an explanation of how the illness targets the genes in the XY chromosome pair. But because it quickly becomes a pandemic, spreading with devastating speed across the world, the story is told mostly through the words of women. There are the doctors and researchers, and the women around the world who must carry on and learn to fill the gaps in the workforce and raise their girl children alone.
I realise this sounds like a desperate book. And of course, it is. But it’s also an absolutely gripping narrative of how the world carries on and survives, albeit differently. In a foreword the author tells of her mounting horror and apprehension as she watched the Covid-19 pandemic unfold while she was in the process of finishing this novel. But what she has created is beautifully written, easy to follow, never mawkish or sentimental, mostly matter-of-fact… and unputdownable. Weeks after reading it I still can't get it out of my mind.
Review by: Freyja
I found this book really engaging as it is written from multiple perspectives. I found myself arguing with some of the decisions and opinions of the diverse characters, who were not all likeable. It reflects the indiscriminate nature of illness and survival and the differences in the way people cope with loss and bereavement.
Given the similarities between how governments and societies have coped with the very real situation we have faced in 2020-21, I find it incredible that this was written pre covid 19.
