Sandra Newman’s latest book, THE MEN, opens with a seemingly mundane vignette --- a man and woman go camping with their young son near their home in Northern California. But when Jane awakens the following morning, her husband and child have vanished entirely.

Since this is a work of science fiction rather than a suspense novel, we soon learn that Jane is not alone. Around the world, countless other women are experiencing similar scenes of domestic disorientation. Elsewhere, planes are left to crash without their pilots, patients are left forgotten on hospital tables without their surgeons, and nightly news programs are left without their talking heads, all because at 10:14pm on August 26th, every male in the world simultaneously disappeared.

"THE MEN is sure to get people talking, and not only for how Newman handles gender categories. This is also a novel, implicitly or explicitly, about plagues, climate and how power is reified by those in charge."

Jane’s story might open the book, but it’s not the only one that Newman chooses to delve into. There’s Ji-Won Park, a striving artist in New Hampshire whose best friend Henry disappears. There’s teenager Blanca Suarez, who was one of those surgical patients and whose father was her only source of support. There are middle-aged mothers, recovering alcoholics and others. All of their stories start to converge as Newman’s vision unfolds. For some of the survivors, the men’s disappearance is a tragedy, while for others it is a relief or even a joy. As we soon learn in an extended flashback, Jane’s history with men has been largely toxic and damaging.

As the women start to grapple with this new reality, for better or for worse, much of it starts to center on charismatic Evangelyne Moreau, the head of a political party and a rising star who has her own complex history with Jane. Even as Evangelyne starts to reshape the political realm to suit this strange new future, the women are transfixed by an unsettling series of videos called “The Men.” At first the footage appears to be a hoax or a prank, but soon it starts featuring actual men known to its viewers. Are these troubling, increasingly violent videos a warning? A call to action? Or a terrifying vision of an alternate future in which men are still the ones in charge?

In an author’s note, Newman says that THE MEN was inspired by numerous classic works of science fiction, mostly by female writers, which also envisioned a future in which half the human population abruptly disappeared. She wants to pay homage to these literary foremothers, and in many ways she does. But it’s undeniable that today’s understanding of biological sex and gender is far different and more sophisticated than the assumptions under which Newman’s literary forebears were operating. She makes some difficult and controversial choices about where transgender people fit in this world she has created. Although perhaps she should be commended for not erasing them from her narrative entirely, the way that she addresses gender feels somewhat outdated and at odds with contemporary discourse.

That said, THE MEN is sure to get people talking, and not only for how Newman handles gender categories. This is also a novel, implicitly or explicitly, about plagues, climate and how power is reified by those in charge.