I think a lot about what makes us human, what defines our humanity, whether it can be sustained in isolation. This narrator joined me in these musings. Harpman broaches many questions about the reality of personhood, including love, loneliness, grief and freedom. The narrator’s unique position of youth and ignorance about life before has meant she has spent the majority of life in isolation, unable to comprehend love or understand those around her - yet, I feel Harpman cleverly coveys her increasing wisdom as she grows, using the narrative voice to show the reader how this life has traumatised and affected her, what a life made up of unanswerable questions can really mean.

There is no continuity and the world I have come from is utterly foreign to me. I know only the stony plain, wandering, and the gradual loss of hope. I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing. Perhaps, somewhere, humanity is flourishing under the stars, unaware that a daughter of its blood is ending her days in silence. There is nothing we can do about it.