“He does not see her, because for him there is nothing to see. How can a fifty-two-year-old white immigrant storekeeper with the taste of potatoes and beer in his mouth, his mind honed on the doe-eyed Virgin Mary, his sensibilities blunted by a permanent awareness of loss, see a little black girl? Nothing in his life even suggested that the feat was possible, not to say desirable or necessary.”

Not heavy on the tech this sci fi. The plot doesn‘t try to involve you in mental gymnastics. Butler asks the essential questions . What does being human mean ? Where does the threshold reside of humanness? Butler tears apart our exceptionalism very simply. Theres no waffle no over lay no mystifying by high literary language. We are laid bare as we are . Hierarchical destructive zenophobic cruel yet complex beings.