Him
Geoff Ryman
ISBN 9781915202673
376 pages
Release: December 5, 2023
Publisher: Angry Robot

I must admit I became enamoured of Geoff Ryman’s work after reading The King’s Last Song, a superb tale which relates the story of an archaeologist working on the stupendous site of Angkor Wat where he finds a book of golden leaves which is a memoir written by Jayavarman Seven, one of the first Buddhist kings in Cambodia. The second story reveals the contents of the memoir as its being written. The third story revolves around a former Khmer Rouge policeman. The intersection of these stories haunts me still, years after having read it.

Since then, I’ve read just about everything Ryman has written, and have always been deeply affected.

Ryman’s latest novel, Him, surpasses anything he has written thus far. In my opinion, the skill and scope of the novel firmly places him in the same league as Rushdie and Atwood. And like those luminaries’ works, Him is destined to not only become a classic in literature which transcends genre, but join that cannon of books which are banned and burned.

Him is a reimagining of the mythology of Jesus, and what Ryman creates is believable, sensitive, devastating. As always, his writing is precise, his characters clearly defined, his pacing and plot fraught with tension.

Ryman’s exploration reveals a pregnant woman married off to a man who is essentially the village idiot. She cannot account for her pregnancy, thus the virgin birth. He has been exiled for preaching questionable views of the Torah. The marriage is difficult in that neither wishes any sexual congress, and yet they do somehow manage children. The eldest child, born female and named Avigayil, becomes a transgender individual, and after serving an apprenticeship as a stonemason, goes on walk-about preaching a new interpretation of the Hebrew texts. As expected, their following grows. The essential points of the Jesus story are followed.

But what Ryman does with the characters and events is startling, provoking, and utterly memorable. Maryam’s shock, fear, and disgust of her daughter’s actions is made abundantly clear, to the point she refers to her daughter, now identifying as male and Yeshu, as It, or the Cub.

Yosef barLevi, the hapless husband and father, stumbles his way through existence, incapable of providing for his family, of demonstrating any act of connection.

And Avigayil-become-Yeshu, rockets through phases of recklessness, demand, and grief, until embracing their course of action as a teacher, a prophet, and in the end a god.

Ryman examines profound discovery and self-realization, ripping away any sentimentality and doctrine, and in the end exposes the core of what it means to be human, and to love.

I will not reveal the last passage of Him. Suffice it to say I read it at 3:00 a.m., weeping because of the beauty of what Ryman had written, and the emotional impact of what he had to say.

If Him doesn’t make the shortlist for the Booker, the Giller, and the GG, there is something truly wrong with our understanding of stunning literature. And you should go out right now, obtain a copy, read it, weep, and then give Him a permanent place in your library.