Book Review: The Humans by Matt Haig

The Humans
by Matt Haig (Haig)

The Humans is a 2013 book from the British author more recently known for The Midnight Library, though he’s been producing works in fiction and non-fiction for adults and children since 2002. I would describe it as a mostly-humorous work of general fiction, with strong science fiction overtones.

 

The central character is Professor Andrew Martin, a mathematics professor at Cambridge University. Except, it’s not really. Actually, our central character is an alien from a far distant planet, who has taken the physical form of Professor Andrew Martin and is on a deadly-serious mission to planet Earth. Professor Martin has just solved one of the Holy Grails of mathematics — the Riemann Hypothesis, a complex calculation regarding prime numbers, the solution of which could lead to mind-blowing advances in technology and our understanding of the universe. Only, the distant aliens don’t believe Humans are sufficiently developed to be able to handle these advances. So…they’ve sent the fake Andrew Martin to destroy all evidence of the Riemann solution, as well as anyone that the real Andrew Martin might have shared his solution with.

 

The fake Andrew arrives in the middle of a busy highway, completely naked, and without more than a cursory understanding of the human species. After a risque romp, and after having picked up enough of the English language to be able to converse, “Andrew Martin” is arrested and presumed to have had a mental breakdown. His wife, Isobel, bails him out and takes him home, where he discovers that he must pretend to be Andrew, in a complicated relationship with Isobel and their troubled son, Gulliver.

 

The longer the alien pretends to be Andrew Martin, the more human he becomes, to the consternation of his superiors back home, with whom he remains in contact. The Humans allows Haig to tell a true “fish out of water” story, making interesting observations about humanity along the way. There’s a lot of humor, as “Andrew Martin” has few filters, and frequently says the wrong things. But the new “Andrew Martin”, despite his bizarre flaws, appears to be a much better “human” than the real Andrew Martin who he replaced — I particularly appreciated the relationship he develops with Gulliver Martin. I felt a strong vibe of someone on the autism spectrum telling the story, so learning that author Matt Haig does identify as being on the spectrum was no surprise.

 

Despite the main character being an alien, I still would not classify The Humans as science fiction — as an SF novel, I’d only rate this 4 or 5, but as general fiction with an SF flavor, I’d give it a 7 or 8 — I’ll settle on 7 overall. I enjoyed it a great deal, and yet still wished it was more than it turned out to be.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the three books in the The Rosie Trilogy by Graeme Simsion, The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.)

 

( official Matt Haig web site )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!