The End of Men(104)
Thanks to my brilliant UK editor, Carla, at Borough. From our first meeting I knew you completely understood this book and what I was trying to say. It’s a joy to work with you.
Thank you to Mark and Danielle at Putnam, and Amy at Doubleday, for your thoughtful guidance and enthusiasm about the book. My lovely US agent, Alexandra; the Curtis Brown rights team—Sarah and Jodi—and Luke for all your hard work. Thanks to Ann and the amazing publicity and marketing teams at HarperCollins.
I’ve never had any formal creative writing education but I learned to write from Marian Keyes and Julia Quinn. Anything I know about wit, characterization and plot I learned from their novels so a huge thank you to them.
I’m going off piste here but truly I couldn’t have written this without my MacBook (a present from my mum after months of tearful laptop drama), 7Up Free, Teapigs green tea, peanut M&M’s and Magnum ice creams. For the record, this acknowledgments section is, alas, not sponsored. When writing late at night and throughout weekends, snacks just take on enormous importance.
Thank you to my best friends, whom I confided in when writing novels was something I did in secret with only hope and your encouragement to keep me going. Dolf, you’ve been by my side since we were nineteen working on our student newspaper. You’re the best friend a girl could wish for and your constant reassurance and support means the world to me. Sarah, thank God Tom had the good sense to fall in love with you (I mean, who wouldn’t?) and brought you into my life. I remember admitting over a glass of white wine in 2015 that I desperately wanted to be an author. You had total faith that I could do it and have never let me forget that. Tom, Will, Vicky, Simon, Claudia, Katie and Louise: thank you for being my people. Emily and Serina, the best work colleagues around, who shared my excitement and the surreal experience of signing with an agent and selling the book. Thank you to Daphne, who taught me the harp for a decade, and how to work hard to build a creative skill. You’ve had an extraordinary impact on my life, and to this day I still follow the lessons you taught me.
I’m very lucky to have the best family. Juliana and Kenny, who both listen to me talk about books an inordinate amount and make sure I never feel alone. Dad, your excitement about my writing always gives me such a boost. I hope I’ve made you proud. Papa, thank you for always believing in me and telling me I’m clever, even when I just felt very tired and overwhelmed from studying.
And thank you to my mum. You’ve been on the receiving end of so many phone calls and questions. You’ve told me more times than I can count that I could be published, would be published. We’ve spent thousands of hours over my life talking, analyzing, figuring stuff out, cackling with laughter. You always said the harder you work, the luckier you get and here we are.
THE END OF MEN
CHRISTINA SWEENEY-BAIRD
DISCUSSION GUIDE
A CONVERSATION WITH CHRISTINA SWEENEY-BAIRD
DISCUSSION GUIDE
1. Discuss the novel’s oral history style—multiple narratives, emails, transcripts, and articles—and the way it impacted your reading experience.
2. Is there a villain in The End of Men? If so, who is it? Is there one character who you sympathize with more than others? Did the first-person points of view change your connection to the characters?
3. The End of Men was written a year before the outbreak of COVID-19, but there are many parallels between the real world and that imagined in the novel. How has the reality of COVID-19 changed your perception of the novel? What are the similarities and differences from our world today?
4. Do you believe The End of Men is a feminist novel? Is the book “anti-male”? How does the relationship between the two sexes evolve throughout the narrative?
5. Discuss the ways that different characters cope with grief in the novel. How does grief either fuel or cripple the various characters?
6. What genre do you believe The End of Men falls into? A thriller? Dystopian? Women’s fiction? Why?
7. Do you think the novel presents an accurate portrayal at what life without men would like? What would that world look like for you? How would it be similar to or different from the world we see in the novel?
8. Compare and contrast the way that different countries confront the pandemic, both on a societal and personal level. How do you think you and your community would have reacted in this situation?
9. Some characters ultimately benefit from the pandemic and its repercussions. How do they each reconcile their good fortune? Do you think that any event, even a global pandemic, can have good effects?
10. Consider Catherine’s final postscript at the end of the novel. What do you take from it? Is the ending ultimately hopeful?
A CONVERSATION WITH CHRISTINA SWEENEY-BAIRD
What inspired The End of Men?
I’ve always loved speculative fiction and wanted to write something that explored a “What if?” question. I remember reading World War Z by Max Brooks when I was in my early twenties and finding it completely terrifying. It felt so real despite it being science fiction. The breadth of stories from around the world that I’ve included in The End of Men is hugely inspired by the scope of World War Z. I also read The Power in early 2018, which made me think about the different stories I could tell looking at how men and women interact in the world, and so that was also a big inspiration. I read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel at the suggestion of my agent after I had finished the first draft and it became something of a North Star; I wanted the characters in The End of Men to be as compelling and emotionally engaging as those in Station Eleven, which is now one of my favorite books.