BookChat: The Fortress by SA Jones

Welcome to our first ever three person BookChat! It happened that all three of us got this book, so we coordinated our reading and now we're bringing you our review.

BE AWARE: This book contains mentions and depictions of rape, including rape of children, and mentions of suicide and self harm.

J: You made that sound very heavy, B!

B: I want people to be aware in case they'd like to skip this one.

J: As long as they're not skipping because of me. I'm so glad to finally be in a BookChat!

BJ: You need to read more books we like.

J: And did you like this one, BJ?

BJ: Very smooth, well done. I don't know if I enjoyed it, exactly. It's an odd kind of one, isn't it? I'm not unhappy I read it, but bits of it are definitely hard to get through.

B: I think it's because we're so deep in his mindset all the time. There's no block between us; we're feeling and seeing and experiencing everything he feels and sees and experiences.

J: Did you like him as a character?

B: No.

BJ: Almost no.

B: Almost?

BJ: He did love his baby so much.

J: That's true. And he never actually meant harm to anyone. He was blind, maybe willfully, to what was going on, but he wasn't taking part in it.

B: He was a bit.

J: He thought he wasn't.

BJ: Eeeehhh...

J: He was so upset about Claire. That bit I can't talk about because it's a spoiler...

BJ: Yeah, ok, I'll give you that bit. Was anyone else confused for quite a while about what exactly was happening? In the backstory, I mean?

B: Yes. I wondered for a while if they might be on another planet, or something. The backstory doesn't arrive until very late in the story.

J: And instead it's an alternate present.

B: As far as I could tell. Which scene was hardest for you to read, BJ?

BJ: The scene by the wall during the storm, and in the tower a little bit after that.

J: Yeah, they were pretty tricky, I agree. It's an odd book overall. I agree with BJ: I'm not unhappy I read it, and I think the concepts are really clever, but I won't be rushing to reread it.

B: I'd love to know more about the civilisation, maybe in another book sometime. There's some unanswered questions, after all.

J: Agreed.

BJ: It would depend on the story, but I'm not saying no.

B: Good enough.

Jonathon Bridge has a corner office in a top-tier law firm, tailored suits and an impeccable pedigree. He has a fascinating wife, Adalia, a child on the way, and a string of pretty young interns as lovers on the side. He’s a man who’s going places. His world is our world: the same chaos and sprawl, haves and have-nots, men and women, skyscrapers and billboards. But it also exists alongside a vast, self-sustaining city-state called The Fortress where the indigenous inhabitants–the Vaik, a society run and populated exclusively by women–live in isolation.

When Adalia discovers his indiscretions and the ugly sexual violence pervading his firm, she agrees to continue their fractured marriage only on the condition that Jonathan voluntarily offers himself to The Fortress as a supplicant and stay there for a year. Jonathon’s arrival at The Fortress begins with a recitation of the conditions of his stay: He is forbidden to ask questions, to raise his hand in anger, and to refuse sex.

Jonathon is utterly unprepared for what will happen to him over the course of the year–not only to his body, but to his mind and his heart. This absorbing, confronting and moving novel asks questions about consent, power, love and fulfilment. It asks what it takes for a man to change, and whether change is possible without a radical reversal of the conditions that seem normal.