The Power by Naomi Alderman

A lady in a charity shop told me, on scanning The Power, that it was a good read and on the recommendation of a stranger, it went immediately to the top of my reading pile. It is, it is fair to say, a powerhouse of a novel and there was no pun intended there, sincerely.

The book is built on the idea that women discover that they have a power, that they are literally able to produce electricity from their own bodies with the ability to control, maim, kill. Through the viewpoints of several people, Alderman charts the progression of this power as it slowly becomes recognised across the world and depicts the effect that it has in different hands. Of course, these are all women except for one, Tunde, a young Nigerian man who rides the wave of this power becoming a global phenomenon, recording instances of it on his phone and selling it to the highest commercial media bidder.

Other perspectives are provided by: the religious figure, Eve, previously known as Allie; the mayor with ambition, Margot; the black market criminal, Roxy. In addition, there are minor characters too like Jocelyn, Margot’s daughter, but it is these four whose stories make up the bulk of the narrative.

And this is so well-crafted. My, my. Alderman doesn’t set out to show a world which, if dominated by women, is any better than the one we currently live in. To the contrary, she realistically portrays how power of any kind can be wielded and abused by any number of people, regardless of age, culture, circumstance.

I will say that there are a lot of instances in the book of women using it against men in retribution but it is not just about revenge for exploitation. Alderman is also keen to show women abusing it too because they can and there is one scene in the book which will stay with me forever where Alderman describes how, in the wrong hands and for the wrong purposes, power can be used to hurt excessively and without motive. Chilling and disturbing.

It was for this scene that I gave it five stars as well as its awareness, its astuteness and the way it’s been put together. It is shrewd especially in the way it begins and ends and the illustrations throughout of artefacts found (fictional?) give it an air of validity which unsettles.