Never Let Me Go

NEVER LET ME GO: Kazuo Ishiguro: Knopf: Fiction: 288 pages

This is a novel that slowly unfolds its secrets. Kathy and her two school friends, Ruth and Tommy, grew up at Hailsham, an idyllic, isolated school where the children are encouraged to create art and feel special. But there is a darker side to Hailsham. One that Kathy and the other school children sense, but feel they are unable able to discuss even with each other.
Now 31, Kathy re-develops lost friendships with classmates Ruth and Tommy. They begin to examine what clues they had as children that they were different from everyone outside. Like the Hailsham students, the reader is initially protected from the full truth, but ultimately we learn that Hailsham children are clones, raised to donate organs for “real” people.
Although Ishiguro’s novel can be viewed as a cautionary tale of science and the medical field outdistancing ethics, it is also a sensitive and emotional tale of the bonds of friendship, loyalty and the “human” capacity for forgiveness.

AJ