Critical Praise

“Far from resting on her laurels, Lessing…goes from strength to strength…. Ben's half-human ignorance, paranoia, and rage are magnificently imagined and vividly present on every page. The condition of the outsider has hardly ever before in fiction been portrayed with such raw power and righteous anger…. Few, if any, living writers can have explored so many forbidding fictional worlds with such passion and conviction.”

——Kirkus Reviews

“Lessing still takes quite extraordinary risks. …A subtle meditation on what could possibly happen to a creature like Ben. “He is more poignant than Frankenstein's monster just because he has hope. At times, Lessing's spare, sharp prose lets you see things as Ben sees them, as you have not seen things before. The book shares that uncanny effect with the best fiction.”

——The New York Times Book Review

“(A) fine new novel… Here is a work of great imagination with considerable sympathy for its strange subject. “To write a novel based on a situation so improbable as this requires considerable courage, a quality that Doris Lessing possesses in plentitude.”

——The Newark Star-Ledger

“Where [Lessing] excels is in the sheer power of her storytelling and in the visceral impact of the story she tells.”

——The Wall Street Journal