The Female of the Species

The Female of the Species
Lionel Shriver

The first novel from the Orange Prize-winning author of We Need to Talk about Kevin is a compelling and provocative story of love and how we suffer for it.Still unattached and childless at fifty-nine, world-renowned anthropologist Gray Kaiser is seemingly invincible—and untouchable. Returning to make a documentary at the site of her first great triumph in Kenya, she is accompanied by her faithful middle-aged assistant, Errol McEchern, who has loved her for years in silence.When young graduate assistant Raphael Sarasola arrives on the scene, Gray is captivated and falls hopelessly in love—before an amazed Errol's eyes. As he follows their affair with jealous fascination, Errol watches helplessly from the sidelines as a proud and fierce woman is reduced to miserable dependence through miserable dependence.

Copyright (#u673c00cf-37da-516e-823e-cc616eabb94f)

The Borough Press

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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

First published in Great Britain by Viking 1988

Copyright © Lionel Shriver 1987

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com)

Lionel Shriver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

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Source ISBN: 9780007564019

Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007564026

Version: 2015-01-13

Dedication (#u673c00cf-37da-516e-823e-cc616eabb94f)

To Jonathan Galassi, whom I owe not only for this novel, but for a life.

The envy of any housewife up to her ears in dish towels and phone bills, the women of the Lone-luk had their water carried, their children watched and wiped, their meals prepared and their plates cleaned, while they sat in judgment, sculpted and wove, led religious services, and oversaw the production of goods for trade. However, one could recognize in them, as in equivalent patriarchal oppressors, the cold boredom of domination.

GRAY KAISER,

Ladies of the Lone-luk, 1955

Il-Ororen thought they were it. Yet they did not have the celebratory abandon of a culture that saw itself as the pinnacle of creation; rather, they were a sour, even embittered lot. If these were all the people in the world, then people were not so impressive.

… I have wondered if they took Charles in as readily as they did because they were lonely.

GRAY KAISER,

Il-Ororen: Men without History, 1949

I remember, in a rare moment of simple dispassionate clarity toward the end with Ralph, she said to me, “You win and you lose; you lose and you lose; you lose.”

“Some choice,” I said.

She was a beautiful woman, and she was tired.

ERROL MCECHERN,

American Warrior: The Life of Gray Kaiser, 2032

Table of Contents

Cover (#ufed52733-59b1-51ee-bd8f-2813ec3925aa)

Title Page (#u50195905-af4b-51c3-a163-4acff889ea9b)

Copyright (#uc3b9143f-f2a1-5f86-89c9-73ff29913dbb)

Dedication (#ub83af403-e31b-5daa-9d75-350abd5c63d8)

Epigraph (#u5c7a760d-d396-5c7e-a14b-5c899e5ee2e7)

chapter one (#u43f6b1e2-b361-5579-976b-30c642857351)

chapter two (#ua3b23f6c-687a-5345-b0de-0a82a01d8035)

chapter three (#udc7486ba-18fc-5715-928e-1a737bd107e0)

chapter four (#u28690cd9-40ad-59eb-93f4-dfb81af4eb78)

chapter five (#u9303f8ae-390c-5819-b9cd-a777b25ba81f)

chapter six (#u9e71c8f6-bb6c-5882-9ded-5cbc79244911)

chapter seven (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter eight (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter nine (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter ten (#litres_trial_promo)