The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist

My book club chose this book for January from my list of ideas.  Last year I had noticed it on Flashlight Worthy's end of year list.  So far that site has had some great suggestions - including this one.

The Unit is a facility where older childless people go to donate themselves to science.  They live there for a few months to a few years and participate in medical experiments, donate their non-essential organs, and ultimately participate in their "final donation" of their heart and lungs.  The book follows a woman named Dorrit as she arrives at the Unit. 

On the surface, the Unit is not a terrible place - each resident has a private apartment, and there are parks, restaurants, cinemas, and many activities.  But the professional, chipper, and seemingly empathetic staff are committed to a government-sponsored strategy to use the "dispensable" humans who live there as efficiently as possible.  The glimpses we have of the "outside world" through flashbacks also depict a society that has been mandated to respect only a particular type of family and of societal worth. 

I will borrow Margaret Atwood's classification of this as "speculative fiction", as Holmqvist's world is not, strictly speaking, science fiction.  Like Atwood and other authors of the genre, Holmqvist was able to make significant social commentary with this story.  In this case, she comments on our treatment of the elderly, our views on childless adults, and, more broadly, our definitions of family.

It was difficult to think about this book without also thinking of Never Let Me Go; though the styles were quite different, with The Unit being far more transparent and emotional, the themes were very similar.  The other book this made me think of was Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Both books were translated from the Swedish and I couldn't help but wonder if the act of being translated was what made both books somewhat matter-of-fact or if that was an indication of a cultural norm.  It makes me wish I knew any language well enough to read the same story in the original and the translation. 

I liked this book, largely because it was well-plotted and made me think.