The name Shamima Begum inevitably springs to mind. This story about a young woman emerging from a political grouping – in this case Maoist – who ordinary people would consider mad is the central point of this book. The fact that the group is political, not religious, is not relevant. Nor is it relevant that it is a leftist group. It could be any group that sees itself as having the only solution to the world’s problems, and which is not prepared to listen to the opposing arguments. It could be any group that seeks to dominate every deal of its members’ lives. When it is religious, we call it a cult. When it is political, it is still a cult even though we do not use that word. In the case of Nina X, who upbringing is a project to create the perfect human, untrammelled by capitalist thought. This is possibly drawn from Ewan Morrison’s own experience of such organisations although I very much hope that most of it is a product of his fertile imagination. What Ewan Morrison shows us is a whole series of damaged individuals with Nina X at the centre of the tale. We do not know what caused Chen, Jeni, Ruth, Uma and the rest of the commune to become damaged, but we are shown how Nina X is damaged in great detail. She becomes a project for the others, to be brought in the “perfect” condition of not having a mother and a father, but being the child of everyone in the commune. This could be the concept that “every child is my child” and that all adults have a duty to assist in the upbringing of the children in their community. That, however, is not what happens. Nina X is the result of an attempt to do away with the concept of the family, and to replace it with the commune. Within all this are the concepts of self-criticism and of physical punishment for transgressions, and the punishment is inflicted by the rest of the community, including the children. The significant point is that you are not allowed to criticise the central ideology of the group. The only criticism that is allowed is of your own failure to abide by the theory. You are never allowed to think that if the theory does not work, there may be something wrong with the theory. Ewan Morrison illustrates this point by a slight digression, discussing the campaign in 1950s China to eliminate birds. So many birds were killed by enthusiastic children that there was not a large enough bird population to eat insects, and a plague of Biblical proportions descended on China destroying the crops, resulting in millions dying in the subsequent famine. The birds had been identified as pests causing pollution and disease. What had not been thought through was the consequence of their destruction. And no-one dared to tell Chairman Mao that he was wrong. The other part of this tale is that of the various people trying to deal with Nina’s case once she escapes from the commune. These are people who are simply drowning in the responsibilities that have been thrust upon them, without the necessary resources to deal with what is expected of them. At the centre of everything is a bewildered woman, struggling with her life and trying to come to terms with her situation. This is not easy because of the damage that has been done to her. Ewan Morrison gives no real suggestion that she is going to recover and that everything will be all right in the end. Probably because he does not believe that it will. This is a portrait of a young woman who has been damaged by the ideologues around her. That is why it is a relevant tale at the moment. That is why it must be read.