DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. Discuss the novel’s oral history style—multiple narratives, emails, transcripts, and articles—and the way it impacted your reading experience. 2. Is there a villain in The End of Men ? If so, who is it? Is there one character you sympathize with more than others? Did the first-person points of view change your connection to the characters? 3. The End of Men was written a year before the outbreak of COVID-19, but there are many parallels between the real world and that imagined in the novel. How has the reality of COVID-19 changed your perception of the novel? What are the similarities and differences from our world today? 4. Do you believe The End of Men is a feminist novel? Is the book “anti-male”? How does the relationship between the two sexes evolve throughout the narrative? 5. Discuss the ways that different characters cope with grief in the novel. How does grief either fuel or cripple the various characters? 6. What genre do you believe The End of Men falls into? A thriller? Dystopian? Women’s fiction? Why? 7. Do you think the novel presents an accurate portrayal of what life without men would look like? What would that world look like for you? How would it be similar to or different from the world we see in the novel? 8. Compare and contrast the way that different countries confront the pandemic, both on a societal and personal level. How do you think you and your community would have reacted in this situation? 9. Some characters ultimately benefit from the pandemic and its repercussions. How do they each reconcile their good fortune? Do you think that any event, even a global pandemic, can have good effects? 10. Consider Catherine’s final postscript at the end of the novel. What do you take from it? Is the ending ultimately hopeful?
A C o nve rs at i o n wi t h
Chr is t in a Sweeney-B aird
about
THE END OF MEN WHAT INSPIRED THE THE END OF MEN ? I’ve always loved speculative fiction and wanted to write something that explored a “What if?” question. I remember reading World War Z by Max Brooks when I was in my early twenties and finding it completely terrifying. It felt so real despite it being science fiction. The breadth of stories from around the world that I’ve included in The End of Men is hugely inspired by the scope of World War Z. I also read The Power in early 2018 which made me think about the different stories I could tell looking at how men and women interact in the world, and so that was also a big inspiration. I read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel at the suggestion of my agent after I had finished the first draft and it became something of a North Star; I wanted the characters in The End of Men to be as compelling and emotionally engaging as those in Station Eleven, which is now one of my favourite books.
THE END OF MEN WAS, OF COURSE, WRITTEN WELL BEFORE THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC BEGAN. WHAT HAS IT BEEN LIKE FOR YOU TO WATCH YOUR FICTION UNFOLD IN REAL TIME, AND WHAT DO YOU THINK THE WORLD CAN LEARN FROM YOUR NOVEL? It’s been completely surreal! I remember my UK agent, Felicity, sending me articles about the virus when it was first being covered in the press in January 2020 just before she sent the book out to publishers. Many early readers have commented on how realistic some bits of the book now feel, which is obviously not something I ever expected when I wrote it. I hope that after reading The End of Men people think about the importance of gender equality, and the myriad ways in which society is structurally still built around the needs of men, not women.
Photo © Sophie Davidson 2020
WHAT KINDS OF RESEARCH DID YOU DO IN THE PROCESS OF WRITING THIS NOVEL? A lot of the research was done online as I went along, as there are lots of different countries and characters in the book that required data, for example, about populations and the practicalities of vaccine production. I also spent a lot of time researching viruses and how they work, and specifically how to make the female immunity to the virus practicable. I read Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez, which is a phenomenal book that explores the many ways in which data is collected without being disaggregated for men and women, and the impact of the world being built around men. I truly cannot recommend it enough.
PERHAPS ONE OF THE MOST STRIKING ASPECTS OF YOUR NOVEL IS THE DEPICTED RESISTANCE OF ADMINISTRATIVE LEADERSHIP, AT BOTH THE MEDICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL LEVELS, IN RESPONDING TO EARLY CASES. WHAT INFORMED YOUR DECISION TO INCLUDE THAT AS A SIGNIFICANT PLOT POINT IN YOUR NOVEL? I think we’d all like to believe that our leaders are always competent, knowledgeable, and wise but, sadly, the people in charge in every part of society are human. They make mistakes. The virus in The End of Men is so extraordinary—with a 90 percent mortality rate and male element—that it felt more realistic to me that the medical and political establishment would take a while to accept it was, in fact, real and the grave threat Amanda Maclean says it is.
IN YOUR NOVEL, THE VIRUS TAKING OVER THE WORLD AFFECTS ONLY MALE MEMBERS OF THE POPULATION. WHAT DID YOU WISH TO EXPLORE ABOUT GENDER, AND HOW DOES IT FIT WITH LARGER CONVERSATIONS ABOUT GENDER ROLES IN TODAY’S DISCOURSE? I wanted to explore the ways in which society is unbalanced; in which industries is there a dominance by men? In which industries is there a dominance by women? Which parts of society work for men better than women? Why do those disparities exist, and what would it look like if they were reversed? Society has changed enormously over the past centuries and decades, and women are arguably more empowered than we have ever been before in history (at least in Europe and North America). And yet–there are still people who argue that women wanting the same pay as men and having the same expectations for our lives, is somehow “too much.” I hope The End of Men goes some way in showing how absurd that thinking is.
“WHICH PARTS OF SOCIETY WORK FOR MEN BETTER THAN WOMEN? WHY DO THOSE DISPARITIES EXIST, AND WHAT WOULD IT LOOK LIKE IF THEY WERE REVERSED?”
STO O D R E D N U IS M N E T F O O S IS “I T H IN K T H AT F E M IN IS M EN, H W E V A H N E M N A H T E R O M A S B E IN G A D E M A N D F O R O L IT IC A L , P E M A S E H T R O F D N A M E IN R E A L IT Y, IT IS A D S AS MEN” T H IG R L IA C O S D N A , IC M ECONO WHY DID YOU DECIDE THAT THE VIRUS WOULD AFFECT ONLY MEN? IN WHAT WAYS HAS THE END RESULT OF YOUR NOVEL DIFFERED FROM WHAT YOU SET OUT TO WRITE? The novel is built around the question: What would the world look like without men? In that sense, the use of a virus that kills only men is a means to a speculative end. I remember having the idea for a book about society without men, and immediately knowing I had to write it. The first draft of the book had many more narrators, none of whom had more than one section of the book, so it was more disjointed. Catherine—who is, in many ways, the heart of the novel—wasn’t included in the first draft. I did a significant rewrite in autumn 2019 after I signed with my UK agent and we culled many of the perspectives and brought out the key voices for the story. The structure of the book is therefore totally different from what I envisioned, but the arc of the story—how the world is affected and the recovers—is the same as my original plan.
THE END OF MEN IS NARRATED FROM MULTIPLE VIEWPOINTS. DID YOU FIND THAT SOME CHARACTERS’ PERSPECTIVES WERE EASIER TO WRITE THAN OTHERS? DID YOU HAVE ANY FAVORITES? I love writing in first-person present tense so I found the writing process relatively easy as I’m comfortable with that type of narration. One of my mum’s good friends (whom I’ve since also become friends with) is a brilliant, practical, no-nonsense Glaswegian doctor who partially inspired Amanda. I grew up in Glasgow and a lot of my friends’ parents were doctors, so Amanda came to me quite easily. I found that Lisa’s voice was crystal clear in my head and so she was the easiest character to write. My favorites are Catherine and Amanda. I would want to be friends with them in real life. Also, she’s a small character, but I have a soft spot for Frances, whose husband is stuck aboard a ship off the coast of Iceland.
WHILE THE NOTION OF A “WOMAN’S WORLD” IN THEORY MIGHT CONNOTE FEMALE EMPOWERMENT, YOUR NOVEL SUGGESTS THAT THERE IS MUCH MORE TO MOURN FROM THE SUBORDINATION AND ERADICATION OF THE MALE SEX. WHAT DID YOU WISH TO EXPLORE ABOUT FEMINISM IN THE END OF MEN ? I think that feminism is so often misunderstood as being a demand for more than men have when, in reality, it is a demand for the same political, economic, and social rights as men. The death of so many men would, as I show in the novel, be devastating on many levels, both personally for almost everyone on the planet and for society. But, in showing what that world might look like, I think we can explore some of the areas in which women are still not equal to men.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU? I’m working on my next novel—another piece of speculative fiction—and also redrafting a YA novel I’ve been working on since early 2020.
A P L AY L I ST I N S P I R E D BY
THE END OF MEN MONUMENT RÖYKSOPP & ROBYN
SUCCESSION (MAIN TITLE THEME)
WHEN THE PARTY’S OVER
NICHOLAS BRITELL
BILLIE EILISH
RADIOACTIVE
BURY A FRIEND
IMAGINE DRAGONS
BILLIE EILISH
ILOMILO
OH NO!
BILLIE EILISH
MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS
CAN’T HELP FALLING IN LOVE
SAIL AWOLNATION
ELVIS PRESLEY
TOO CLOSE
DANTE’S CREEK
ALEX CLARE
THEY.
TENNIS COURT
NEVER BE LIKE YOU
LORDE (FLUME REMIX)
FLUME (FEATURING KAI)