The Testament of Jessie Lamb
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A little like The Handmaids Tale colliding with Children Of Men, Jane Rogers eighth novel offers a variation on one of the most chilling apocalyptic scenarios. In the near future, every woman in the world has been infected by some kind of airborne contaminant which causes maternal death syndrome (MDS). Anyone who becomes pregnant will automatically develop a form of CJD which ultimately kills them. She also quite explicitly carries over themes from her earlier bestseller, Mr Wroes Virgins, which, recast for the genome-mapping, eco-terrorist 21st century, prove soberingly durable. ALASTAIR MABBOTT --The Herald PAPERBACK OF THE WEEK
With Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go having hit the big screen, this is set to be a good year for literary dystopias that pack an emotional punch. With that adaptation, it's a case of if you like the film, you'll love the book, but if you can take any more bleakness you'll be blown away by this new novel by Jane Rogers. The scary thing about this novel is that the questions it raises are so close to home. Must women always be the victims and the fall guys? The novel does not set up an elaborate apocalypse, but astringently strips away the smears hiding the apocalypses we really face. Like Jessie's, it is a small, calm voice of reason in a nonsensical world. KATY GUEST --The Independent
Jane Rogers has captured Jessie's voice brilliantly, alternating a teenager's solipsism with a growing awareness of the wider world. Jessie's self-conviction is both admirable and infuriating, and the reader is torn between her clear, unequivocal conclusions and the intricate, heartfelt compromises of her parents. LUCY DALLAS --Times Literary Supplement
Jane Rogers has captured Jessie's voice brilliantly, alternating a teenager's solipsism with a growing awareness of the wider world. Jessie's self-conviction is both admirable and infuriating, and the reader is torn between her clear, unequivocal conclusions and the intricate, heartfelt compromises of her parents. LUCY DALLAS --Times Literary Supplement
With Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go having hit the big screen, this is set to be a good year for literary dystopias that pack an emotional punch. With that adaptation, it's a case of if you like the film, you'll love the book, but if you can take any more bleakness you'll be blown away by this new novel by Jane Rogers. The scary thing about this novel is that the questions it raises are so close to home. Must women always be the victims and the fall guys? The novel does not set up an elaborate apocalypse, but astringently strips away the smears hiding the apocalypses we really face. Like Jessie's, it is a small, calm voice of reason in a nonsensical world. KATY GUEST --The Independent
Jane Rogers has captured Jessie's voice brilliantly, alternating a teenager's solipsism with a growing awareness of the wider world. Jessie's self-conviction is both admirable and infuriating, and the reader is torn between her clear, unequivocal conclusions and the intricate, heartfelt compromises of her parents. LUCY DALLAS --Times Literary Supplement
Jane Rogers has captured Jessie's voice brilliantly, alternating a teenager's solipsism with a growing awareness of the wider world. Jessie's self-conviction is both admirable and infuriating, and the reader is torn between her clear, unequivocal conclusions and the intricate, heartfelt compromises of her parents. LUCY DALLAS --Times Literary Supplement
Product Description
LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2011 Women are dying in their millions. Some blame scientists, some see the hand of God, some see human arrogance reaping the punishment it deserves. Jessie Lamb is an ordinary girl living in extraordinary times: as her world collapses, her idealism and courage drive her towards the ultimate act of heroism. If the human race is to survive, it s up to her. But is Jessie heroic? Or is she, as her father fears, impressionable, innocent, incapable of understanding where her actions will lead? Set just a month or two in the future, in a world irreparably altered by an act of biological terrorism, The Testament of Jessie Lamb explores a young woman s determination to make her life count for something, as the certainties of her childhood are ripped apart.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The subject matter of "The Testament of Jessie Lamb" ensures that this is not a comfortable read. Set in the near future, Rogers has imagined a truly terrifying virus that affects pregnant women, known as Maternal Death Syndrome or MDS. Everyone carries this illness but the effects, a cross between AIDS and CJD, ensure that all pregnant mothers will die - without exception. Scientists have found a way to save some of the unborn children, but only by placing their mothers in a chemically induced coma from which they won't recover. Now though, the scientists have also discovered a way of immunising frozen, pre-MDS embryos which, if they can be placed in a willing volunteer, may ultimately allow the survival of the human race. However, the volunteers need to be under 16½ or the likely success rates are too low. Step forward one Jessie Lamb.
The Booker longlist can be relied on to throw up at least one novel on a controversial subject. Last year it was "The Slap". This year it's this novel. There's no doubt it asks awkward and unsettling questions about a variety of issues including the age at which people can take informed decisions, the rights and wrongs of scientific research and animal testing and the right anyone has to chose their own death. There are no easy answers to any of these questions of course.
As you might infer from the title, the story is written from a first person narrative by Jessie. Often with first person narratives it's difficult to get a true steer on the character herself. Effectively she's dealing with the usual teen dramas of arguing parents, failed love and general `what's the point of me?' stuff. She's into environmentalism and vegetarianism, all in the idealistic way of many of her age. The most rounded character is her father, fortuitously a genetic scientist who talks a fair amount of common sense.
As for Jessie's friends, she seems to have a bizarre mix of one of each of a series of extreme beliefs. We get the ardent feminist, who joins a group called FLAME whose statements are so ludicrous that they almost undermine what is a potentially a strong feminist argument; a supporter of ALF, the animal rights movement; and a self-sufficiency fan who decides to run off to live off the land. Add into this mix her aunt who is desperate for a child, whatever the personal cost. Then there are the religious fundamentalists against scientific research called the Noahs. The problem is that these are all rather two dimensional. Most 16-year-olds I know group together in like minded cliques. There is nothing that would bind these apparent friends together.
The genesis of the virus is hinted at but never explored. Is it a terrorist act or merely an unfortunate accident? Neither Rogers, nor Jessie, are interested in this. Neither do we get a great deal on the overall impact of the disease, other than that is has clearly spawned a lot of fundamental groups of various types.
Yet for all this, there's no doubt that it asks some interesting and uncomfortable questions of the reader and the ending is genuinely moving. The whole concept of the virus itself is a scarily good basis for a story, but by presenting such a myriad of extreme views, the reality of the issue is somehow lost. FLAME for example rant that if the disease affected males then something would have been done by now. Ultimately it lacked the heart that can make dystopian stories, like "Never Let Me Go" or "The Handmaid's Tale", so affecting. But at least it doesn't try to over simplify the moral message. I'm still not sure what I think of Jessie's decision and that's to the book's credit.
The Booker longlist can be relied on to throw up at least one novel on a controversial subject. Last year it was "The Slap". This year it's this novel. There's no doubt it asks awkward and unsettling questions about a variety of issues including the age at which people can take informed decisions, the rights and wrongs of scientific research and animal testing and the right anyone has to chose their own death. There are no easy answers to any of these questions of course.
As you might infer from the title, the story is written from a first person narrative by Jessie. Often with first person narratives it's difficult to get a true steer on the character herself. Effectively she's dealing with the usual teen dramas of arguing parents, failed love and general `what's the point of me?' stuff. She's into environmentalism and vegetarianism, all in the idealistic way of many of her age. The most rounded character is her father, fortuitously a genetic scientist who talks a fair amount of common sense.
As for Jessie's friends, she seems to have a bizarre mix of one of each of a series of extreme beliefs. We get the ardent feminist, who joins a group called FLAME whose statements are so ludicrous that they almost undermine what is a potentially a strong feminist argument; a supporter of ALF, the animal rights movement; and a self-sufficiency fan who decides to run off to live off the land. Add into this mix her aunt who is desperate for a child, whatever the personal cost. Then there are the religious fundamentalists against scientific research called the Noahs. The problem is that these are all rather two dimensional. Most 16-year-olds I know group together in like minded cliques. There is nothing that would bind these apparent friends together.
The genesis of the virus is hinted at but never explored. Is it a terrorist act or merely an unfortunate accident? Neither Rogers, nor Jessie, are interested in this. Neither do we get a great deal on the overall impact of the disease, other than that is has clearly spawned a lot of fundamental groups of various types.
Yet for all this, there's no doubt that it asks some interesting and uncomfortable questions of the reader and the ending is genuinely moving. The whole concept of the virus itself is a scarily good basis for a story, but by presenting such a myriad of extreme views, the reality of the issue is somehow lost. FLAME for example rant that if the disease affected males then something would have been done by now. Ultimately it lacked the heart that can make dystopian stories, like "Never Let Me Go" or "The Handmaid's Tale", so affecting. But at least it doesn't try to over simplify the moral message. I'm still not sure what I think of Jessie's decision and that's to the book's credit.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
My overwhelming reaction to The Testament Of Jessie Lamb, is surprise, surprise in fact that it has been nominated for this years Booker Prize and is currently on the longlist. Not because it's a bad book, in the way that say There But For The by Ali Smith is, in my opinion, a bad book, but because I was surprised it met the criteria.
In the case of this book, it appears to have been marketed as adult contemporary fiction and only has an adult imprint, a decision I find a little baffling, for a novel whose audience I would see as a GCSE student. As a piece of young adult dystopian fiction it is good, but I've read better, most notably The Giver by Lois Lowry and The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness to which it shares a similarity in an aspect of plot.
It lacks much in originality I felt given its similarity in theme to The Children Of Men by PD James, later adapted for the screen starring Clive Owen. In the world of Jessie Lamb, there has been an act of bio-terrorism, as a consequence there has been a global fertility crisis. When women get pregnant - they die. (Hang on a minute? Wasn't that what happened to pregnant women on the island in LOST as well?) In this brave new world, set not far from our present, no more children are being born and the population of women is dropping, as those who do get pregnant never survive.
Jessie Lamb is 16, and when we meet her she is being held captive, and she recounts for us what has been happening to ordinary people since the crisis emerged. At 16, Jessie is idealistic and looking for a cause, and causes find her. The animal rights movement, the womens movement, the Noahs, and YOFI. There is a degree of cynicism in Jane Roger's writing about young people who look for a cause to be involved with. You gain a real sense that in Roger's eyes "causes" target the vulnerable and a "cause" is just "another phase" disenchanted young people go through, before growing up, becoming a champagne socialist, and attending a Tory party conference if it's in their interest to do so. And she probably has a point. Yet, for some people a cause gives their life meaning. Not for nothing I feel did Rogers give her protagonist the surname Lamb. Though again, this is a "clever" connotation in a young adult book, yet a bit patronising for an adult contemporary.
In terms of subplots, the novel asks some interesting questions related to the morals and ethics of Science, particularly IVF and the idea that scientists have long since passed the point of playing God, Rogers just pushes the boundary one step further. Ultimately though I didn't feel that Jessie's testament or sacrifice would have much impact in either the short or long term given the global scale of the issue. Which meant that the ending didn't pack the huge emotional punch it thinks it does. I also found the secondary surrounding characters very poorly drawn, and not even Jessie particularly easy to care about. Maybe when I was 12 I might have found it really important and exciting but I also think that maybe, just maybe I might have found it weak and characters uninspired and uninspiring - pretty much like I do now. I am shocked this book was even nominated to be honest. If you want a good sci-fi book to read on this topic read Jonathan Trigell's Genus
In the case of this book, it appears to have been marketed as adult contemporary fiction and only has an adult imprint, a decision I find a little baffling, for a novel whose audience I would see as a GCSE student. As a piece of young adult dystopian fiction it is good, but I've read better, most notably The Giver by Lois Lowry and The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness to which it shares a similarity in an aspect of plot.
It lacks much in originality I felt given its similarity in theme to The Children Of Men by PD James, later adapted for the screen starring Clive Owen. In the world of Jessie Lamb, there has been an act of bio-terrorism, as a consequence there has been a global fertility crisis. When women get pregnant - they die. (Hang on a minute? Wasn't that what happened to pregnant women on the island in LOST as well?) In this brave new world, set not far from our present, no more children are being born and the population of women is dropping, as those who do get pregnant never survive.
Jessie Lamb is 16, and when we meet her she is being held captive, and she recounts for us what has been happening to ordinary people since the crisis emerged. At 16, Jessie is idealistic and looking for a cause, and causes find her. The animal rights movement, the womens movement, the Noahs, and YOFI. There is a degree of cynicism in Jane Roger's writing about young people who look for a cause to be involved with. You gain a real sense that in Roger's eyes "causes" target the vulnerable and a "cause" is just "another phase" disenchanted young people go through, before growing up, becoming a champagne socialist, and attending a Tory party conference if it's in their interest to do so. And she probably has a point. Yet, for some people a cause gives their life meaning. Not for nothing I feel did Rogers give her protagonist the surname Lamb. Though again, this is a "clever" connotation in a young adult book, yet a bit patronising for an adult contemporary.
In terms of subplots, the novel asks some interesting questions related to the morals and ethics of Science, particularly IVF and the idea that scientists have long since passed the point of playing God, Rogers just pushes the boundary one step further. Ultimately though I didn't feel that Jessie's testament or sacrifice would have much impact in either the short or long term given the global scale of the issue. Which meant that the ending didn't pack the huge emotional punch it thinks it does. I also found the secondary surrounding characters very poorly drawn, and not even Jessie particularly easy to care about. Maybe when I was 12 I might have found it really important and exciting but I also think that maybe, just maybe I might have found it weak and characters uninspired and uninspiring - pretty much like I do now. I am shocked this book was even nominated to be honest. If you want a good sci-fi book to read on this topic read Jonathan Trigell's Genus
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Jessie Lamb lives in the near future, but it is one that has been altered by bio-terrorists. Everyone on the planet has been infected by MDS (Maternal Death Syndrome), which lies dormant until pregnancy, when it attacks the pregnant mother with a combination of AIDS/CJD. There is no cure, although research is obviously being carried out - in part by Jessie's father. At first, Jessie is unconcerned about MDS as it doesn't affect her. However, eventually, she becomes more aware of what the event of MDS means for both the world and her personally. There are no new babies and, unless something is done, the human race will die out. Society starts to break down, as children feel adults have wreaked havoc on them, destroyed the planet and killed their future. The author does a good job of presenting a chilling and uncomfortable view of what could lie ahead, making it plausible and realistic.
Jessie is an extremely idealistic sixteen year old. She is active in various groups, aimed at trying to save the planet. She complains if her parents use the car, buy new clothes or want to book a holiday. They want life to go on - she can't see how it can. In a way, Jessie comes across as slightly petulant, too idealistic and a little unsympathetic because of that; although teenagers can be that way of course! This book concerns Jessie's attempts to 'do something' to help save humanity and the novel throws up interesting questions about sacrifice and idealism. Ultimately, the character of Jessie could have been more convincing had she been less intense, but then one of the issues in the book is how old Jessie is when she chooses to make her decision. One of the better characters in the novel was Jessie's Aunt Mandy, a slightly disturbed older woman who has never had a child and is desperate to be a mother. Her situation was a much more sympathetic one, I felt, and more could have been made of it. Overall, though, an interesting and thought provoking read.
Jessie is an extremely idealistic sixteen year old. She is active in various groups, aimed at trying to save the planet. She complains if her parents use the car, buy new clothes or want to book a holiday. They want life to go on - she can't see how it can. In a way, Jessie comes across as slightly petulant, too idealistic and a little unsympathetic because of that; although teenagers can be that way of course! This book concerns Jessie's attempts to 'do something' to help save humanity and the novel throws up interesting questions about sacrifice and idealism. Ultimately, the character of Jessie could have been more convincing had she been less intense, but then one of the issues in the book is how old Jessie is when she chooses to make her decision. One of the better characters in the novel was Jessie's Aunt Mandy, a slightly disturbed older woman who has never had a child and is desperate to be a mother. Her situation was a much more sympathetic one, I felt, and more could have been made of it. Overall, though, an interesting and thought provoking read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Adult or teenage fiction?
I have enjoyed some of her other books, but found the style of this one slightly unsatisfactory. If I was reading this as a young teenage, I think I would have been greatly taken... Read more
Published 3 days ago by S. Powell
Haunting and memorable, top quality science fiction
A worthy winner of the 2012 Arthur C Clarke award.
Clear, uncluttered writing and a 16 year old protagonist do not (necessarily) make this a young adult's book. Read more
Clear, uncluttered writing and a 16 year old protagonist do not (necessarily) make this a young adult's book. Read more
Published 21 days ago by Fridaydalek
Really boring read
I bought this book as it was recommended by a book review panel. I just don't get it. It was pure hard work to read, okay not a jolly subject but devoid of any joy, wit or humour. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mike Pearson
Am I wrong in reading TESTAMENT tangentially?
Yes, the specific MDS issue occupies the foreground but in the background there are the familiar concerns about terrorism and global warming, vivisection and genetic... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mr. K. Ogden
Uninspiring in the extreme
I have to say that I started thinking about the review of this book based on the fact that I thought it was written for adults. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Jemmy Bloocher
Difficult Story, Easy Read
I rarely choose to read a sci-fi novel, but the contentious subject matter in the Man Booker Prize winner `The Testament of Jessie Lamb' oddly appealed to me. Read more
Published 5 months ago by slcopson
Good for YA fiction
I wasn't blown away by "The Testament of Jessie Lamb" but it would be fine for a high school student. The political message was a bit heavy-handed for my tastes. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Jessica Coleman
Thougth provoking
This book managed to pleasantly surprise me. I thought it would be quite a heavy subject matter but it is handled in a very approachable and thought provoking way. Read more
Published 8 months ago by S. L. Stewart
Interesting premise but ultimately disappointing
I had been looking forward to reading this since I saw Jane Rogers had a new novel coming out (I actually pre-ordered it on 26th September last year! Read more
Published 9 months ago by D. Dean
Disappointing
I am a big fan of dystopian novels, so when I saw this on the Booker longlist I was very keen to get my hands on it.
Parts of it where I thought very well-done. Read more
Parts of it where I thought very well-done. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Late night reader
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