What kinds of research did you do in the process of writing this novel?
A lot of the research was done online as I went along, as there are lots of different countries and characters in the book that required data, for example, about populations and the practicalities of vaccine production. I also spent a lot of time researching viruses and how they work, and specifically how to make the female immunity to the virus practicable. I read Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez, which is a phenomenal book that explores the many ways in which data is collected without being disaggregated for men and women, and the impact of the world being built around men. I truly cannot recommend it enough.
Perhaps one of the most striking aspects of your novel is the depicted resistance of administrative leadership, at both the medical and governmental levels, in responding to early cases. What informed your decision to include that as a significant plot point in your novel?
I think we’d all like to believe that our leaders are always competent, knowledgeable, and wise but, sadly, the people in charge in every part of society are human. They make mistakes. The virus in The End of Men is so extraordinary—with a 90 percent mortality rate and male element—that it felt more realistic to me that the medical and political establishment would take a while to accept it was, in fact, real and the grave threat Amanda Maclean says it is.
In your novel, the virus taking over the world affects only male members of the population. What did you wish to explore about gender, and how does it fit with larger conversations about gender roles in today’s discourse?
I wanted to explore the ways in which society is unbalanced. In which industries is there a dominance by men? In which industries is there a dominance by women? Which parts of society work for men better than women? Why do those disparities exist, and what would it look like if they were reversed? Society has changed enormously over the past centuries and decades, and women are arguably more empowered than we have ever been before in history （at least in Europe and North America）。 And yet there are still people who argue that women wanting the same pay as men and having the same expectations for our lives is somehow “too much.” I hope The End of Men goes some way in showing how absurd that thinking is.
Why did you decide that the virus would affect only men? In what ways has the end result of your novel differed from what you set out to write?
The novel is built around the question: What would the world look like without men? In that sense, the use of a virus that only kills men is a means to a speculative end. I remember having the idea for a book about society without men, and immediately knowing I had to write it. The first draft of the book had many more narrators, none of whom had more than one section of the book, so it was more disjointed. Catherine—who is, in many ways, the heart of the novel—wasn’t included in the first draft. I did a significant rewrite in Autumn 2019 after I signed with my UK agent and we culled many of the perspectives and brought out the key voices for the story. The structure of the book is therefore totally different from what I envisioned, but the arc of the story—how the world is affected and then recovers—is the same as my original plan.
The End of Men is narrated from multiple viewpoints. Did you find that some character’s perspectives were easier to write than others? Did you have any favorites?
I love writing in first-person present tense so I found the writing process relatively easy as I’m comfortable with that type of narration. One of my mum’s good friends （whom I’ve since also become friends with） is a brilliant, practical, no-nonsense Glaswegian doctor who partially inspired Amanda. I grew up in Glasgow and a lot of my friends’ parents were doctors, so Amanda came to me quite easily. I found that Lisa’s voice was crystal clear in my head and so she was the easiest character to write. My favorites are Catherine and Amanda. I would want to be friends with them in real life. Also, she’s a small character, but I have a soft spot for Frances, whose husband is stuck aboard a ship off the coast of Iceland.
While the notion of a “woman’s world” in theory might connote female empowerment, your novel suggests that there is much more to mourn from the subordination and eradication of the male sex. What did you wish to explore about feminism in The End of Men?