What It Takes to Be Human

What It Takes to Be Human , the haunting new novel by Orange Prize–shortlisted author Marilyn Bowering, considers the life of Sandy Grey, an idealistic young air cadet who wants nothing more than to enlist in the Second World War. Sandy’s father, a fundamentalist preacher, refuses to grant his son’s request, fearing that the world is living its very last days. When Sandy’s attempts to oppose his father turn violent, the novel takes a dramatic shift in setting into the fragmented world of an asylum for the criminally insane. Bowering pushes her characters to the very fringe of civilization, love and sanity during the darkening days of a distant conflict to expose the acute parallels between their lives and the lives of those being torn apart by war. * “Bowering tells how a young man retains his sanity in a universe gone mad. Sandy Grey, the narrator, is incarcerated in a B.C. asylum during the Second World War for beating his father with a tire iron. Ultimately, to remain human, Sandy must hope for love. All the strands Bowering dangles out there courageously, ambitiously, begin to braid themselves when the reader needs them to. The novel is confident and Bowering does not seek moments to be brilliant; those moments just arrive.” — Globe & Mail Top 100 Books “What It Takes To Be Human is the story of how a young man retains his sanity in a universe that has gone completely mad. Yes, this story has been written before. We’ve seen it in Henri Charrier’s Papillon, or Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, in which our first-person narrator, obviously brilliant though somewhat porous, is powerless in an unjust world. …Other great novels, such as Lord of the Flies, The Island of Dr Moreau or even Heart of Darkness, in which men descend to the most animal part of being human, come to mind. … [Bowering] successfully connects the reader to the magnitude and complexity of what it meant to live during a world war [and] the absurdity, pettiness and inhumanity of the justice system is fully realized. … What it Takes to Be Human is a great novel, as worthy as the other novels mentioned in this review. All the strands Bowering dangles out there courageously, ambitiously, begin to braid themselves when the reader needs them to, and we are rewarded with a sense of wholeness. I’m not going to say I couldn’t put it down. There were times when I had to put it down, to close its cover and step away, to allow my mind to wrap around its ideas—to stand at a distance from the story of Alan Macaulay and Sandy Grey and grasp the gravity of their plight, the sheer insanity of war and the injustices perpetrated on those who lack ability to prove their innocence…. [Bowering] does not seek moments to be those moments just arrive.” — The Globe and Mail "Marilyn Bowering explores the relationship between innocence, injustice, and motiveless malevolence in a story that is so layered and compelling that you will be dazzled by her wisdom and huge talent. The characters will break your heart, renew your faith, and remind you what it takes to be human." — Rosemary Sullivan, author of Villa World War II, Escape, and a House in Marseille “Once into it, I read almost without stop, fascinated with her narrator and the world he found himself in. Continuously inventive, it was also totally (frighteningly) believable. The whole novel seemed to imply that to find hell (with its monsters) we need only look to the fairly-recent past and not very far from home. One of its biggest successes for me is that this visit to a kind of hell is conducted by a generous heart that guides us from somewhere just slightly behind the visible narrator. It's a superb novel.” — Jack Hodgins "Who among us does not feel nowadays that we are in a madhouse, locked into an insane world in which anger, ignorance and cruelty are winning the war? But help is on the way -- we have a new hero, unlikely though he may seem. Young Sandy Grey reminds us that imagination and language are the tools we need to break free and Marilyn Bowering proves it, by writing an astonishing novel through which optimism carries us forward and makes us believe that, in Sandy's final words, You can always count on love." — Isabel Huggan, author of The Elizabeth Stories and Belonging "Marilyn Bowering is one of our whistle blowers. Her new book tells us What it Means to be Human -- something we seem on the brink of forgetting. Classic in form, this white knuckle book leads us through a contemporary underworld before bringing us up, once again, to the light. Required reading!" — P.K. Page, winner of the Governor General's Award for The Metal and the Flower "One of Canada's most eloquent storytellers has given us a compelling and exquisitely crafted tale about hope, love and creativity, in, of all places, a Canadian mental asylum." — Susan Swan, author of What Casanova Told Me “Taut and suspenseful, Bowering’s judicious use ...