Set in the not-too-distant future, humans are planning to leave Earth, completely, in just a few years, having ruined the planet for good. The OuterMore Corporation is building humanity’s new home - the Installation - in space and has begun conscripting people to help in its construction. One of these newest conscripts is Junior, who lives in the country on a farm with his beloved wife Hen. So OuterMore sends a rep, Terrance, to ready Junior for his trip and help Hen prepare for his sudden absence. But who is Terrance - and what’s really going on here…?
I recently saw Charlie Kaufman’s latest film, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, adapted from Iain Reid’s first novel of the same name, and I really enjoyed it so I decided I’d check out Reid’s other book, Foe. And, while I have some issues with the novel, I thought Foe wasn’t bad overall.
I dip in and out of SPOILERS! throughout the rest of the review so fair warning.
*
Foe is essentially about the idea that some of us fall in love with a version of someone, fall out of love with them as they change over time and end up wishing that the version of the person you fell in love with could come back somehow. I think that’s an unusual point, though certainly not an untrue one, and Reid explores that idea imaginatively here. But the structure of the story that Reid sets up to get to that point is contrived almost to the point of absurdity!
The more I think about the setup, the more confusing it seems to me. Why would this corporation go out of its way to create a replacement of Junior - basically a clone - to live in the house with Hen, purely so that she won’t feel lonely or potentially fall out of love with Junior - even though neither of them have any say in opting out of this so you don’t really owe them anything because they have no power to object? So we have the technology to create identical copies of ourselves and we use them solely as real-life reminders of the people they represent - that’s all??
And Terrance - what was his role in all this, besides being an overstated red herring; counsellor to Hen? Again, all this complex resource devoted to this simple farm couple - why does this corporation care how they feel?? It seems overly elaborate to do all of this for just two people! It feels like the setup is there to serve the purpose of the novel’s message and to make you think Terrance is something he’s not - it comes off as confusing and silly, especially as little of it is explained satisfactorily.
Also, it’s really obvious that Junior isn’t who he thinks he is. The novel is mostly told from his perspective and he’s unable to remember much of his past beyond a few snatched memories, all revolving around Hen, while Hen acts more and more distant towards him and it’s clear she knows Terrance better than she’s letting on - he’s not some stranger to her. And Reid keeps up this measure of knowing uncertainty until the final act when all is revealed in a way that only adds to the feeling of contrivance. That’s the problem with this kind of mystery story - you can’t show your hand for the majority of it so the effect is often that the narrative is underwritten.
Still, I can see why Reid adopted that softly softly approach as it kept me turning the pages to find out what the conclusion would bring. He writes well so it’s a smooth read, and I appreciated the subtle world-building - in this instance, his underwriting came off more artistic and less clumsily vague like it does elsewhere. Rather than paint an oppressive, stereotypical picture of a dystopian future, he places hints here and there at the doomed atmosphere of the planet: Junior and Hen sleep with a thin blanket because it’s always hot, livestock is outlawed, corporations have replaced governments, and then there’s the not-so-subtle-fact that humans are packing up to leave Earth shortly!
I thought it was a really interesting choice to continue talking about leaving the planet and about Junior’s trip to space without ever doing it - I liked that my expectations in this regard were upended. And, while I continue to question the presence of Terrance’s character, he gave the narrative a tense and unpredictable dynamic - an imposing authority figure who exerts power over the other two characters but tries to do so in a way that’s seemingly friendly, like Hans Landa in the opening scene of Inglourious Basterds.
The ending was unexpected and I liked it. If anyone’s wondering what exactly happened: Hen went to be with Replacement Junior, leaving the real Junior back on the farm, unknowing that the wife she’s left behind is a Replacement Hen. How can you tell? Replacements talk without speech marks and also find themselves captivated by the horned beetles on the farm for no reason. Hen throughout has spoken with speech marks until the very end when her behaviour suddenly changes, she warms to the real Junior, talks without speech marks, and ends by staring at a horned beetle.
In other words, their marriage has failed because they’re both in love with the people they were and not the people they are now - they’ve changed in the two years they’ve been apart, but still wish they could be with the versions of themselves they were two years ago, which they can be, but only with Replacements of themselves. And I looked up beetle symbolism on some woo-woo sites that said beetles represent unwanted change and persistence in times of trouble - I don’t know if Reid intended this for his beetles but that fits in with the themes of the book.
Foe is a super-contrived novel, structured purely to suit the author’s purposes in a way that feels overly synthetic (which, now I think some more about it, is also appropriate, given the fake people who are a part of its world!), but I quite liked it. Terrance and the entire OuterMore Corporation still don’t make sense to me and parts of it were too obvious (something’s wrong with Junior, durrr, no shit), but it’s a compellingly eerie, Twilight Zone-esque narrative with enough going on to have kept me entertained and the point it’s aiming for hasn’t been overstated in fiction - in fact, I’m not sure I’ve read a novel with the same kind of message, so it’s almost original if it didn’t seem kinda banal. Still, his stories are undeniably distinctive - Iain Reid is definitely a writer worth keeping an eye on.
I recently saw Charlie Kaufman’s latest film, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, adapted from Iain Reid’s first novel of the same name, and I really enjoyed it so I decided I’d check out Reid’s other book, Foe. And, while I have some issues with the novel, I thought Foe wasn’t bad overall.
I dip in and out of SPOILERS! throughout the rest of the review so fair warning.
*
Foe is essentially about the idea that some of us fall in love with a version of someone, fall out of love with them as they change over time and end up wishing that the version of the person you fell in love with could come back somehow. I think that’s an unusual point, though certainly not an untrue one, and Reid explores that idea imaginatively here. But the structure of the story that Reid sets up to get to that point is contrived almost to the point of absurdity!
The more I think about the setup, the more confusing it seems to me. Why would this corporation go out of its way to create a replacement of Junior - basically a clone - to live in the house with Hen, purely so that she won’t feel lonely or potentially fall out of love with Junior - even though neither of them have any say in opting out of this so you don’t really owe them anything because they have no power to object? So we have the technology to create identical copies of ourselves and we use them solely as real-life reminders of the people they represent - that’s all??
And Terrance - what was his role in all this, besides being an overstated red herring; counsellor to Hen? Again, all this complex resource devoted to this simple farm couple - why does this corporation care how they feel?? It seems overly elaborate to do all of this for just two people! It feels like the setup is there to serve the purpose of the novel’s message and to make you think Terrance is something he’s not - it comes off as confusing and silly, especially as little of it is explained satisfactorily.
Also, it’s really obvious that Junior isn’t who he thinks he is. The novel is mostly told from his perspective and he’s unable to remember much of his past beyond a few snatched memories, all revolving around Hen, while Hen acts more and more distant towards him and it’s clear she knows Terrance better than she’s letting on - he’s not some stranger to her. And Reid keeps up this measure of knowing uncertainty until the final act when all is revealed in a way that only adds to the feeling of contrivance. That’s the problem with this kind of mystery story - you can’t show your hand for the majority of it so the effect is often that the narrative is underwritten.
Still, I can see why Reid adopted that softly softly approach as it kept me turning the pages to find out what the conclusion would bring. He writes well so it’s a smooth read, and I appreciated the subtle world-building - in this instance, his underwriting came off more artistic and less clumsily vague like it does elsewhere. Rather than paint an oppressive, stereotypical picture of a dystopian future, he places hints here and there at the doomed atmosphere of the planet: Junior and Hen sleep with a thin blanket because it’s always hot, livestock is outlawed, corporations have replaced governments, and then there’s the not-so-subtle-fact that humans are packing up to leave Earth shortly!
I thought it was a really interesting choice to continue talking about leaving the planet and about Junior’s trip to space without ever doing it - I liked that my expectations in this regard were upended. And, while I continue to question the presence of Terrance’s character, he gave the narrative a tense and unpredictable dynamic - an imposing authority figure who exerts power over the other two characters but tries to do so in a way that’s seemingly friendly, like Hans Landa in the opening scene of Inglourious Basterds.
The ending was unexpected and I liked it. If anyone’s wondering what exactly happened: Hen went to be with Replacement Junior, leaving the real Junior back on the farm, unknowing that the wife she’s left behind is a Replacement Hen. How can you tell? Replacements talk without speech marks and also find themselves captivated by the horned beetles on the farm for no reason. Hen throughout has spoken with speech marks until the very end when her behaviour suddenly changes, she warms to the real Junior, talks without speech marks, and ends by staring at a horned beetle.
In other words, their marriage has failed because they’re both in love with the people they were and not the people they are now - they’ve changed in the two years they’ve been apart, but still wish they could be with the versions of themselves they were two years ago, which they can be, but only with Replacements of themselves. And I looked up beetle symbolism on some woo-woo sites that said beetles represent unwanted change and persistence in times of trouble - I don’t know if Reid intended this for his beetles but that fits in with the themes of the book.
Foe is a super-contrived novel, structured purely to suit the author’s purposes in a way that feels overly synthetic (which, now I think some more about it, is also appropriate, given the fake people who are a part of its world!), but I quite liked it. Terrance and the entire OuterMore Corporation still don’t make sense to me and parts of it were too obvious (something’s wrong with Junior, durrr, no shit), but it’s a compellingly eerie, Twilight Zone-esque narrative with enough going on to have kept me entertained and the point it’s aiming for hasn’t been overstated in fiction - in fact, I’m not sure I’ve read a novel with the same kind of message, so it’s almost original if it didn’t seem kinda banal. Still, his stories are undeniably distinctive - Iain Reid is definitely a writer worth keeping an eye on.
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