From the book’s beginning, it’s clear that things are operating under slightly different rules than those we’re used to. The story is set in England and is told by Kathy; although she spends much of the book looking back over her life, the ‘current’ date is somewhere in the late 1990s. Kathy has been working as a carer for eleven years, though she will probably be stepping down within the next twelve months. As a carer, it’s her job to look after organ donors. Given that her donors tend to have excellent recovery times, it’s something she seems to be very good at. However, it’s also clear that the donors she cares for donate repeatedly. In fact, from early in the book, there’s the suspicion that her patients are only ‘allowed’ to stop donating when they die – or ‘complete’, as Kathy puts it.

Kathy studied at Hailsham : more or less a boarding school, apparently quite prestigious, though also a little unusual. There’s an air of familiarity between the pupils and the staff – who are referred to as guardians, rather than teachers. The pupils don’t appear to follow the standard curriculum – there’s no mention of GCSEs or A-Levels. (For that matter, there’s no mention of summer holidays or family either). In recent years, Kathy has been able to choose some of the patients she cares for. Two of the patients she has selected are Tommy and Ruth, friends from her days at Hailsham. “Never Let Me Go” sees Ruth looking back over her life with Tommy and Ruth, from their earliest days at Hailsham together right up until the present day. In doing so, it becomes clear what role she, Tommy and Ruth play in society and why Hailsham was so unusual.

“Never Let Me Go” was the first book by Kazuo Ishiguro I read, but I’ll certainly read more by him. Although very sad, it’s one of the the best books I’ve read in years and would easily make it onto my ‘Desert Island Books’ list. Sometimes, when a book has left its mark on me, I find myself wondering what has happened to a character after the final page : Kathy is a character I found myself wondering about.