Review of I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

Harpman's slim novel poses a mysterious situation without promising concrete explanations. Our main protagonist knows little about her situation or location, yet persists in her quest for answers and builds a rich inner life filled with wonder.

In Jacqueline Harpman's novel I Who Have Never Known Men, forty women (one is a young girl, our main protagonist) live year after year as prisoners in an underground cage. Male guards come and go, feeding the women minimal rations and never speaking.

The women have no recollection of how they came to be in this place, and no information is forthcoming about why they are trapped there. They are not allowed to touch each other but may speak, and to bond and pass the time, they share stories of their past lives, bicker over infinitesimal variations in how they may prepare their food or sew their own clothing, and simply kill time until their almost certain death inside the cell.

Then a blasting alarm sounds, the nearest guard drops his keys and flees, and the women scramble for an escape they never anticipated. But what awaits them on the other side of the bunker doors?

My friend Amy suggested that I read this one, and Harpman's slim novel is mysterious, eerie, and strange. The pacing is appropriately slow as characters wander, wonder, and come across little new information as they search for others. The tone doesn't assure a satisfying set of answers as to why the women were chosen for this imprisonment, insight into what its purpose might be, or details as to its location.

Yet I was intrigued by the post-apocalyptic, puzzling situation and by the main protagonist's persistence and rich inner life, which exists in stark contrast to the physical barrenness that seems to surround her.

More about Jacqueline Harpman

Jacqueline Harpman was a Belgian novelist. I Who Have Never Known Men was originally published in 1995, and later it was the first of her books to be translated into English.

For more postapocalyptic and dystopian stories I've Bossily reviewed, please check out the titles here.