Him
Geoff Ryman
Angry Robot/Watkins 2023
Pb, 366pp, £9.99, ISBN 9781915202673
A young woman, Maryam, becomes pregnant in an unusual way: “I didn’t do anything.” She’s hurriedly married off to a troublesome preacher, Yosef, who is exiled from Yerusalam to the obscure northern village of Nazareth to live in dusty poverty. Maryam names her daughter Avigayil – but four or five years later the child insists: “My name now is Yehushua… I’m a boy.” Over the years, Yehush hangs out with boys in the village and becomes an apprentice to the tekton, the local builder. At 12, already showing significant spiritual awareness, Yehush confounds the priests and scholars at the temple in Yerusalam in a beautifully-written scene. Life goes on, Maryam is Geoff Ryman’s first novel in 18 years, and is a triumph. Most of the story is told from Maryam’s troubled viewpoint – I’d imagine devout Catholics will be appalled – and yet somehow Ryman renders the well-known story, and its characters, new and utterly real and believable. The people of Nazareth even sound Northern!
