Never let me go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

The beginning of this dystopian novel is very confusing – somehow I wasn’t expecting science fiction from this Nobel prize-winning author.  In truth, it isn’t exactly sci-fi or like any other genre.  Once one begins to understand the basic premise, that the main characters are actually human clones who are being raised to be organ donors by their early twenties, things become clearer.  However, the book remains an uneasy combination of a love triangle, British boarding school novel, and a horror story.  Kathy, who has reached her thirties as a “carer,” an unusually advanced age for one of these clones, tells the story in flashbacks to her youth at Hailsham, the school she and the other main characters, Helen and Tommy, attended where they are watched over by “guardians.”  Hailsham is known throughout Britain as one of the best of the institutions that are set up around the country to raise these children.  As young adults, each clone will spend at least some time as a carer, usually burning out after a year or two, then begin his or her short career as an organ donor.  The carers help ease the pain of the donors, who typically survive two to three donations before “completing.”  Kathy has proved unusually resilient in the face of this difficult job, but she is set to begin her donations in about six months.  Meanwhile, she is now caring for her former friends in school, Helen, and Helen’s lover, Tommy.  As we learn of their early friendship, the troubled relationship between them is clarified.   The curiously flat tone of the novel is undoubtedly intentional, like the flatness of the characters emotional response to be in raised for death.  Disturbing and depressing.    288 pp.