Havah: Why We Matter

If Joan Armatrading gets down to the DNA, I know an author who goes much, much deeper than that.

Tosca Lee takes on the very moment of human consciousness in Havah: The Story of Eve. Her sophomore effort brims with texture and flavor, character and real ideas. It also might stand a little too close and pin you against the wall until you give yourself over. And it won't necessarily make you a better person. At least, not at first.

The reader will enter the thoughts of Eve (the titular Havah) from her awakening, through a personal, familial and societal arc that doesn't just touch on important questions about origins, but delves deeply and puts muscle, skin and, crucially, teeth, to the oft-overlooked framework of what we think we know.

I've written in the past that Lee's first effort, Demon: A Memoir was likely the best novel written in the new century. Havah exceeds Demon in scope, character and detail, and, on those three merits, now wears the crown.

There's a great scene in the film Aliens where the good guys are bunkered safely inside a room and tracking the monsters progress against their location. One of the marines is using an infrared (I think) tracker to see where the beasts are, and is calling out their distance from the room. 9 meters, 8 meters, and so on, sort of a "wait until you see the whites of their eyes before shooting" moment.

When the marine says, "6 meters," Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) says, "They can't be. That's in the room."

And it dawns on them. The monsters are bigger, stronger, more numerous, and, most chillingly, smarter than they imagined.

That's Lee's latest effort for you. One of the best living voices, one of the most disarming and delving literary minds, is actually getting better.

God help us.