Half Known Lives

James Tiptree, Jr. Award nominee 2001.

Would an ardent male right-to-lifer change his tune if he found out he was pregnant? Thanks to advances in biotechnology, the female protagonists of Half Known Lives essay an experiment with a fine upstanding citizen of their Prairie city. They take Max Hoffman hostage, impregnate him, and keep him prisoner for the duration of the pregnancy.

The women's close-knit sisterhood will fray, though, to reveal the envy, resentment and hostility underlying their solidarity. Max's pregnancy changes the lives of all involved – each of the women; Max; and not least, the foetus. Narrator Lucy, a feminist mother figure to her women's studies acolytes, confident in her mentor status, will realise she barely knew her cohorts: the secretive Simone, doctor and architect of the impregnation scheme; the gregarious, man-hungry Julia; Monica, alcoholic wife of Lucy's colleague and lover; and Lena, fiery young radical feminist. Worse, Lucy little knew herself.

This powerful, strategic novel traces the consequences of the experiment to the end of the lives of most of the characters, affording us a bird's-eye view of 1970s feminism. Publishing her semi-autobiographical novel about child abuse, Lena rides the third wave of feminism to renown, only to be subsumed by the tide's turn. Lena's tragic story parallels Lucy's bitter awakening to her own skill at self-deception, foregrounding the distortion endemic to narrative – our own and that of others.

Also touched upon with Givner's steely wit are the difficulties faced by gay students and by those who love outside their race, and the cultural distinction between high art and mere craft. Present in her absence, the right-to-lifer's child hovers, on the trail of the sad mystery of her – or his? – genesis.

Expertly playing off multiple viewpoints, Givner skewers sacred beef, feminist and reactionary alike, to make Half Known Lives one of the most provocative novels of the year.