I Who Have Never Known Men
Hard to write about this without giving away the plot, for it’s the very strangeness and unpredictability – some would say unbelievability – that makes it so powerful. A young woman lives in a cage underground with 39 other women, of all ages. They’re guarded round the clock by three men armed with whips who never, ever speak to them. We don’t know why they’re there; it’s never explained. Then, one day, they escape. Into a landscape that – It’s rare to come across a book that follows no expectations, creates its own rules and its own world and its own logic and then follows that logic ruthlessly through to the conclusion. I’ve never read anything like this in my life and it’s going to be a long, long time before its effect fades away. And the fact that it does what it does in less than 200 pages – very, very readable pages - is an added bonus in these days of bloat and hyperbole.
