Iain Reid is the author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things, which I have not read, but I did watch the movie adaptation by Charlie Kaufman, which was surreal and confusing, even if I was able to parse together what was going on by the end. I let the movie put me off from reading the book, and I almost did not read Foe either, but I am glad I did because I got a kick out of the ending (Foe has also been made into a movie, as you can see by Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal being on the cover of the book, but I haven’t watched it and I am glad I read the book first).

Foe is set in the near future and is about a couple named Junior and Hen who live a quiet life on a farm outside of the city. One day a stranger from the city named Terrance arrives to tell them that Junior has been randomly selected from a lottery to leave the farm and travel to the Installation, a large space station that is orbiting Earth. Junior is to remain on the Installation for two years, but he doesn’t have to worry about Hen being alone while he is away because he will be replaced by an artificial version of himself.

Foe is narrated from Junior’s perspective, and we witness his descent into paranoia as Terrance keeps returning to the farm to interview Junior before his departure to the Installation and to collect data to make Junior’s replacement. Terrance’s presence makes Junior angry and resentful, and his relationship with Hen begins to deteriorate. In spite of the sci-fi elements of the story, Foe is a meditation on relationships. Junior is so content with his quiet life on the farm that he assumes Hen is too and he does not pick up on Hen’s body language that suggests otherwise. It was frustrating how Junior kept telling Terrance how happy Hen is with their life together because it could never occur to him that Hen has different feelings. Instead, Junior becomes jealous because he thinks there is something going on between Terrance and Hen. I guess the patriarchy is still thriving in the future.

There is not much to the plot of Foe, but the story is suspenseful and a quick read. It is so obvious what is going on in the story – from Junior’s behaviour, his interactions with Hen, and even from the way the novel is written – that it must be intentional on Reid’s part. But I still felt compelled to finish the story because I knew there had to be some kind of twist at the end, and let me tell you, I cackled when I got to the end of this novel.