Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

Janet talks about a great book group title today.

This month my book group was in the mood for contemporary literary fiction and we selected Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Ishiguro is known for his elegant prose, mastery of tone and setting, complex writing style, carefully crafted characters, and provocative themes. Recognized as one of Britain’s leading fiction writers, Ishiguro’s title The Remains of the Day, won the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction.

One of the first questions we discussed was how should one categorize Never Let Me Go. Not an easy task. Perhaps it belongs with dystopian fiction such as The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Others readers may place it with psychological suspense and science fiction. It touches on all these elements and it is a chilling tale.

Never Let Me Go at first seems a quiet and uneventful story of three childhood friends Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth who grew up together in the 1990’s at Hailsham, a private boarding school set in a remote part of England. Their world seems sheltered, innocent, and even normal yet there are odd rules and unexplained happenings that confuse the obedient students. Everyone accepts the order and the rules. Soon the reader learns that Hailsham is a “special school” where the students are human clones who are being raised to become organ donors. That is their fate. Kathy, the books narrator, is 31 years old and her time is nearing. Kathy reflects on the intersecting lives of the three friends, sorting through their childhood and school-age memories, the experiences they shared throughout young adulthood, and ultimately their time together as they entered the last phase of their young lives. “You were brought into this world for a purpose,” advised Miss Lucy, one of Hailsham’s guardians, “and your futures, all of them, have been decided.”

This book is a beautifully written, if grim, story. A great book club titles,  Never Let Me Go compels you to talk about big questions involving science, society, and morality. It is a cautionary tale that offers your book group a smorgasbord of launch points for discussion. In all honesty most members of my group were not drawn to the characters, but the themes of the book kept us talking way past our usual closing time.

Check the WRL catalog for Never Let Me Go