The story starts off with the marriage of Harriet and David Lovatt, two people who hardly knew each other. They decide early on in their union that they want a lot of children, and start turning words into action. Their family tries to talk them out of having many kids for financial and health reasons, but they proceed to have one, two, three, and four kids. Life is good for Harriet and David and all is happy, until Harriet gets pregnant again. Harriet feels, from the beginning of her pregnancy, that she will not love the child as she does her other children because she feels as if the baby is tearing her up inside. When she does give birth, she realizes that her child is physically hideous and un-empathetic. Harriet begins to entertain the thought that Ben, her newborn, is not even human.

All through out the book, the Lovatts try to pretend that Ben does not exist. They exclude him from their family life and have their other children stay away from him as if he’s a monster. Harriet is cruel to her fifth child, and even sends him to mental institution where he gets drugged and was left to starve. She realized later on that sending him off that way was wrong and so she goes to retrieve him.

Now if you were that mom, would you still expect your child to be normal? I wouldn’t and that’s what confused me about Harriet. How do you expect your child to be perfectly normal and happy when you and the rest of the family show hate and disgust towards him?

Lessing shows how society ostracizes those that are different. All in all, the book is actually a good read and a fast one at that too. I couldn’t put it down, even if I greatly disagreed with how the family treated their different child. I believe that if readers look deeper into the story they will realize that Lessing wants to make a good point about society and that the novel is worth reading because of that reason.