Afterland

​Title: Afterland
Author: Lauren Beukes
Publisher: Umuzi
Reviewer: Nancy Richards
The first time I got to grips with the meaning of the word dystopian was listening to Lauren Beukes talk about her first novel Moxyland back in 2008. Just in case, it means: relating to or denoting an imagined state or society where there is great suffering or injustice. Although not all of her books fall into that category, somehow the connection stuck – so the dystopic setting of Afterland came as no surprise. The content however, I did not see coming.

So the year is 2023. Three years prior HCV or the Human Culgoa Virus  pretty much wiped out all men, thus any remaining males are rare, valuable commodities, for all the obvious reasons (think sperm or ‘white gold’).  Two sisters are fighting for possession of one 12 year old boy, Miles. Although from South Africa originally they are all currently in America, but sister Cole, mother of the prized boy is desperate to get him, and herself, safely home. The other sister Billie, is on their trail and desperate to lay her hands on the boy - for nefarious reasons (think kidnap).  With one having tried to kill the other, the tension is heightened and deception levels plummet to dark and ugly depths.  
Along the way we get involved in:  The dirty dealings of the Department of Men and the grim facility where survivors are held, Cole’s relationship with her savvy but impressionable teenage son (which is a lot to do with staying on the same linguistic wavelength), with ‘his’ transformation into a ‘her’ as Mila, and Billie’s agonising attempts at staying alive and focused with a suppurating head wound. We also travel with mother and son, as well as their pursuers,  to Florida for their escape.  Along the way, we meet up with some finely crafted wicked and weirdo characters, as well as a bizarre cult-like order of nuns, the Sisters of All Sorrows, a band of flawed women struggling with their identities.
If that were all, it would be just another scare-story. But what makes Afterland so compelling over and above the man-gone concept, is Beukes’s way with words – her cinematic images, insightful references and finger-on-the-pulse dialogue.  In another life, she’d make a helluva good script writer – if indeed she isn’t already. Another of her earlier books The Shining Girls has just been taken up for adaptation into a TV series to be produced by Elisabeth Moss and Leonardo DiCaprio. And just while we’re name-dropping, in his review in the New York Times, writing guru Stephen King describes Afterland as ‘a smartly written thriller that opens with a satisfying bang.’
But what is so gob-smackingly eerie about this title is its coincidence with the very real viral pandemic in the grip of which we find ourselves right now. Nope, Beukes wasn't clairvoyant nor privvy to any prescient medical intel  – she started writing the book at least five years ago having done her usual meticulous, hands-on research to find out more about viruses. But that it finally came into being at almost exactly the same time as COVID19, sends shivers up the spine – or through the sperm.  Of course unlike HCV, not only men are targeted by COVID – but the gender focus in Afterland raises all kinds of additional issues. Which will surely get you thinking. Enjoy the ride!