A few months after her mother’s death, the author Naomi Alderman tries to keep her grieving father occupied by setting up a camera to take photos of the foxes that visit his garden at night. Examining the photos the next morning, they discover that they’ve captured not only an image of the fox, but also another animal they’re unable to identify. Soon it emerges that other people all over the UK have also seen this new creature – a furry mammal, similar in appearance to a badger but with a flat face and a long nose almost like an elephant’s trunk. People begin referring to it as a mini mammoth, which is then shortened to ‘mimmoth’ and the name sticks.

As sightings of mimmoths spread across the world, scientists, the media and the public try to make sense of this strange new species. Where did the mimmoths come from? Are they as harmless as they seem or could they be a threat to humans? Alderman herself feels an affinity with the mimmoths, finding comfort in their presence, but when she starts to obsess over them, she begins to wonder whether she’s suffering from a condition known as ‘mimmoth psychosis”.

The Strangers is a strange book! It’s part science fiction but also part memoir, in which Alderman uses herself as the narrator and protagonist of the story. Although I’m new to Alderman’s work and I previously knew nothing about her as a person, it seems that she has drawn on incidents and experiences from her own life in the writing of this novel. She talks about the trauma of suffering a series of failed pregnancies, her complex relationship with her mother and learning to feel comfortable with her physical appearance, which I understand are things she has spoken or written about in the past.

I loved reading about the mimmoths. Alderman writes about them in a very convincing, matter-of-fact way that reminded me of John Wyndham’s books where one unusual, unexpected element is introduced into an otherwise normal setting. She goes into a lot of detail describing what the mimmoths look like, how they behave and, most importantly, how humans react to them. There’s a variety of opinions, ranging from those who believe the mimmoths are a nuisance and should be culled to those who welcome them and are happy to live alongside them. I started to wonder whether the book was intended as a political allegory in which the arrival of the mimmoths represents immigration and I think parts of the story could definitely be interpreted in that way.

The ending of the book disappointed me, though. I felt that we didn’t get a satisfying explanation for the mimmoths’ sudden appearance and what their intentions were; some fascinating threads start to emerge throughout the novel as researchers begin to notice some unusual population patterns seemingly connected with the mimmoths, but none of these ideas really seem to go anywhere and fizzle out towards the end when the focus moves almost entirely onto the narrator’s personal experiences of grieving and healing. For me, the memoir elements and the speculative fiction elements didn’t tie together very well and could almost have been two separate books.

I was left feeling let down by the final 20% or so of the book, but everything that came before that was fascinating so I think this was a worthwhile read overall. This was my first Naomi Alderman book and I would be happy to try another one.

Thanks to Penguin UK for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.