I leaned back across the table and shut my eyes and thought that at some point in the future, long after humanity had run its course, after some other creature had replaced us, maybe, or maybe even after the next creatures had been replaced by whatever came after them, at some point in a future I could not fully imagine, a question might occur in some mind, and that question might be What was the human? What was the world of the human? - though it would be in some unforeseen language, perhaps a language without sound, perhaps a language that did not have to grow from a damp, contaminated mouth - and if this question ever did arise in that future being's mind, would it even be possible to catalog and make sense of all our griefs, our pains and wars? Our delineations? Our need for order? The question arose then - did all this human trouble begin in our bodies, these failing things, weaker or stronger, lighter or darker, taller or shorter? Why did they cause so much trouble for us? Why did we use them against one another? Why did we think the content of a body meant anything? Why did we draw our conclusions with our bodies when the body is so inconclusive, so mercurial?
Resting on that table, not getting undressed, not putting on the paper gown, I feared I'd become something sacrificial, but I would not lay myself out on this altar. Whatever else I may have been, I was, I knew, not theirs.

This is one of those books that really surprised me. It is delectable, utterly satisfying, and I didn't want it to end.

Pew examines society and relishes in dismantling the norms and restrictions that we just take for granted. Lacey asks us to step back and urges us to question what is going on before our eyes. When a close knit community discover a stranger asleep in their church pews, they initially take them in under the pretence of caring for their wellbeing and wanting to help - but, very soon, it becomes clear that their actions may not be as innocent and well intentioned as first assumed. They start by taking away this individual's anonymity, giving them a name, Pew, and they become fixated on learning more about them. What's their real name? What's their gender? Are they white? Where do they come from? The less information they receive, the more aggravated and upset they become, especially with the festival on the horizon...

There is something deeply unsettling about this novel even though you may not be able to put your finger on it until you've finished the book and sat with it for a few days. These people aren't being actively or blatantly cruel to Pew...in fact, on the surface of it all, it looks like they just want to help and you can see the rationality of what they're asking of Pew, yet that soon becomes less clear and it takes a darker turn. The story is told from Pew's perspective but we don't really learn anything more about them than what they're telling (or not telling) to the people of this town. They rarely speak unless they feel compelled to, and they're not overly concerned about the same issues that the community are. Pew thinks more about the purpose of a body, the functionality of being a human being, and the agency they have over their own identity, their own story, is under threat by these seemingly well meaning people. It makes for incredibly tense reading as we can't help but worry for Pew's safety and if their boundaries are going to be pushed to breaking point all for the sake of making them comprehensible to others.

Lacey's prose is startling and thoughtful, and the book really reminded me in some ways of Michel Faber's Under the Skin in its beautiful reflections on humanity and the ways in which it perfectly aligns us with a character who we never really get to know or understand and yet come to feel so much for. Faber's novel is definitely the more out there of the two but Lacey has created a really complex, strange little book that prompts its reader to unravel their ingrained understandings of society and look at it from an outsider's perspective.