by Antigoni Karaferi

Everyone’s childhood is unique and different in so many ways – that’s a fact. Each of us has different experiences and memories that will eventually shape our future selves, and if and how we choose to raise our own children one day. In this blog post, I want to look at how Kate and Eve were raised and compare how different, or how similar, their childhoods were. Was there something in Kate’s childhood that influenced the way she treated Eve as a child?

            Kate (a single mother) raised her daughter Eve mostly by herself, just like Kate’s own mother did. Kate’s childhood was dominated by her mother’s alcoholism. Many times, this forced Kate to take a step back and fall to second place when it came to her mother’s priorities. Kate had to learn how unreliable her mother was and learn how to take care of and look out for herself at a very young age. She took over her mother’s role and even went as far as reversing their respective roles. Claire became the child, having to rely heavily on Kate. A perfect example of this is the numerous times Kate had to deal with the consequences of drunk Claire’s antics – which Claire never even remembered.

            Kate’s mother’s alcoholism negatively shaped her childhood: She had both her parents missing, her father physically, and her mother mostly mentally. Claire’s alcoholism had an enormous impact on Kate’s social life as a child. Her friend’s parents deemed Kate to be a bad influence because of her mother, which made it really hard for Kate to keep the friends she made or even make new ones. This isolated Kate a lot from other people.

            As a child, Kate felt as if her mother did not care about her enough, which in turn made her dedicate her whole life to her own daughter Eve. She did not want her daughter to feel the form of abandonment she had felt as a child herself.

            Eve experienced a very different childhood in comparison to her mother Kate. Eve had a mother who was physically and mentally there throughout her whole life (until Kate’s passing). What shaped Eve especially was how much she stood out – just by her looks and the way she socialised. This is one fate both women shared in their childhoods: this certain degree of alienation, not fitting into the groups around you. The reason for this alienation is what differentiates the two: Claire’s alcoholism caused Kate’s alienation while Eve’s biological differences set her apart from the rest.

            Because of Kate’s intense fear of being caught, Eve spent a big part of her childhood hidden away. Her mother kept her away from other children her age, and also made a big effort to be by her side at all times. This caused Eve to become very dependent on her mother, she did little to nothing without her. Kate turned her life inside out to keep Eve away from the people who were looking for them. Eve became her number one priority in her life. This is the biggest difference in the women’s childhoods: Kate was never her mother’s priority, so she made sure to not make the same mistake with Eve.

by Sarah Pauler

One of the major topics in James Bradley’s novel Ghost Species is the climate crisis and how humans are or presumably already have destroyed the planet and its inhabitants. Many animals are extinct or on the brink of extinction. And shortly before something goes extinct there has to be one unlucky specimen who is the last of its kind: a so-called endling. Once the endling dies, the species is extinct. In Ghost Species, Eve is compared to an endling because she is allegedly the only one of her kind.

‘Is she the only one?’

Kate hesitated. ‘As far as I know. Why?’

Hugh looked thoughtful. ‘It must be very strange, to be alone like that. There are animals I’ve seen, birds mostly, that are the last of their kind. Endlings, we call them.’

Excerpt of Ghost Species, page 164

After learning what she really is, a Neanderthal and not a human, Eve struggles with the thought of being the only one and different from everyone else. But could she be seen as an endling? She isn’t the last of her kind but rather the first one alive, after a long time of extinction.

Another “Endling” mentioned in Ghost Species is the white rhino.

“Did you see the news this morning?” […]

“The last white rhino. Gone.”

Excerpt of Ghost Species, page 18

In our reality, the white rhino isn’t gone but is endangered. The southern white rhino is on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) red list, and is labeled as near threatened with a decreasing number of 10,080 mature individuals (2020). The only confirmed surviving wild subpopulation of northern white rhinos has decreased massively due to poaching since 2003, and in 2006 only four northern rhinos were confirmed. This subpopulation is now considered probably extinct. In response, the San Diego Zoo is developing reproductive technologies like in-vitro fertilization and embryo transfer. They are using the southern white rhino as a model species and potential surrogate for this.

To prevent the extinction of species, scientists are preserving the DNA of endangered species by building a biobank full of biological samples to preserve genetic diversity. These samples are supposed to act as a foundation that can be used together with reproductive technologies in an effort to try and restore endangered species.

Some programs are trying to stop the extinction through the re-introduction of species into the wild and ex-situ (away from natural location) breeding programs. Sadly, those programs are not always successful. Nevertheless, these programs can be compared to what Davis is trying to do in Ghost Species. He also wants to reintroduce species into the wild to try and fight environmental changes.

I want to mention some known endlings from our planet:

The last Rabbs’ fringe-limbed tree frog “Toughie” died in 2016 in the Atlanta Botanical Garden. He was brought there in 2005 when he was rescued from his natural habitat in Panama, where a deadly fungus wiped out 85% of all the amphibians there.

The last Pinta Island Tortoise “Lonesome George” died in 2012 in the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island.  Before his death, they tried to mate George with genetically close females which would have produced hybrids, but resulting eggs were inviable.

“Celia” the last Pyrenean ibex (a wild goat species) died in the year 2000 after being crushed by a fallen tree. She was released into the wild with a tracking collar because wild goats don’t do well in captivity.

The last Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) “Benjamin” died on September 7^th, 1936 at Hobert Zoo in Tasmania. At the time it wasn’t known that he was the last of his kind. Sadly, he died due to neglect, as he was locked out of his shelter in harsh weather. Since 1996 “The National Threatened Species Day” has been held annually on September 7^th in Australia.

Benjamin, although not by name, and thylacines are also mentioned in the novel Ghost Species. Davis shows revived thylacines to Kate and Jay when they arrive at the facility for the first time. In that scene, the live thylacines are compared to the last photo of Benjamin in its cage in the 1930s.

“Yet unlike the jerky film of the last specimen pacing around its cage in the 1930s, they are pulsing, alive and – perhaps most unsettlingly – fitted to the landscape.”

Excerpt of Ghost Species, page 21

Endlings are symbols of the extinction crisis and should bring attention to the importance of conserving species. Way too many species are still going extinct every year. In case you want to learn more, I am going to link the Frozen Ark Project, the IUCN-Red List, and the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance below.

https://www.frozenark.org/

https://www.iucnredlist.org/

https://science.sandiegozoo.org/

by Julia Rapacki

In Ghost Species, an aspect that caught my eye was how often characters, especially Kate and Eve, move homes during the narrative. Throughout the novel we read about several different locations and how they are perceived by the characters. A common theme among these locations is that they are often physically isolated from either the world, the mainland or other people. As I find this particularly interesting, I would like to take a closer look at what these spaces mean for the story and how they are presented.

Starting off, I would like to turn to Tasmania, the island state of Australia where most of the story takes place. Davis set up the Foundation in the middle of Tasmania because it is isolated and therefore allows for more secrecy regarding his projects and natural resistance in case of a global apocalypse. Later on in the novel, this assumption is proven to be correct as we learn about several countries falling into chaos because of natural disasters and collapsing governments while our main characters are mostly unaffected and seemingly have to take measures much later than the rest of the world. The mountainous terrain also allows everyone on Lukas’ farm to stay safe from the rising sea levels and isolated enough to not be bothered by other survivors for a while. It proves to be a hindrance though when Kate takes Eve from the Foundation, as it forces her to stay on the island. Even so, Tasmania turns out to be a saving grace from nature and allows the characters to be mostly unbothered by anything happening outside of it.

The first isolated building we find ourselves in is the Foundation. While the obvious benefits of keeping the experiments away from populated areas are to keep them secret and make it easier to hide from government regulation, it also encourages participating scientists to ignore ethical doubts.

“Later, Kate will wonder whether any of it would have happened if they had been somewhere less isolated, whether normality might have put a brake on their actions if they had been closer to other people. […], there is no doubt that up there, cut off from the rest of the world, it sometimes seemed that anything was possible and nothing was forbidden.” (Bradley, 11f.)

As they are separated from people outside of the Foundation the characters do not have a chance to question their choice to participate through outside input and additionally are partially dependent on the Foundation for lodging and income. It is easy to imagine how these circumstances allow for characters like Jay to ignore doubts they might have and become fully engrossed in their work, as Kate also points out at the beginning of the novel. However, as we follow Kate we see how the isolation and the added strain on her relationship with Jay increases her doubts about the experiment, leading to her taking Eve from the Foundation and going into hiding.

Once Kate has run away with Eve and found a house to stay in, we get to the next isolated location. The house Kate chose is deliberately far out from the city and does not have any mobile or internet connection. She comes to view this lack of connection to the outside world as freeing and relieving. It allows her to distance herself from the crises that are happening around the world, and she does not have to worry about being surveilled by electronic devices. Despite this partial relief, the situation still leaves Kate paranoid and anxious because of her constant fear of being discovered. Her concerns lead to her struggling to ask for help and form new connections. Only in a desperate enough moment, when Eve is sick and Kate can’t take her to the doctor, does she turn to Yassamin for help who becomes a positive support for them. Despite that, her fear proves to have been justified as after 3 years in hiding it is shockingly revealed that the Foundation has known about her whereabouts the whole time.

The last location I would like to focus on is Lukas’ farm where Eve and a few others live at the end of the novel after the climate crisis has reached its peak and the apocalypse has begun. In this situation, the farm’s isolation and Tasmania’s previously mentioned geographical advantages have become a saving grace for the characters residing there. It protects them from rising sea levels while also keeping them safe from discovery by other survivors. This allows them to build up their crops and livestock with fewer struggles than they might otherwise have and helps them survive the wildly unpredictable weather.

Furthermore, the group of people, while not always being completely harmonious, grows close out of necessity and can build up a small community within itself and with neighboring farms. Even Eve, while not feeling wholly included, begins to form bonds with the others and starts appreciating her tasks and contributions to the farm. This relative peace only gets disrupted once their isolation is broken with the arrival of Sami who reveals the farm’s location to people trying to form a new governing entity and taking the resources from individual communities.

Physical Isolation is oftentimes used in stories to induce a sense of helplessness, fear or loneliness. While it is sometimes perceived as negative by the characters in Ghost Species, physical Isolation is just as often shown to be a relief and freedom from obligations, surveillance or the awareness of the crises around the world. Additionally, in the cases of Eve and Kate’s home, Lukas’ farm and Tasmania in general, the isolated nature of these locations represent safety from the Foundation, regulations and nature. Characters isolating themselves from the disasters around the world and choosing not to engage with them is never portrayed as ignorant or as leading to one of their downfalls, as it might in other stories. Instead, it displays how reading about natural disasters on the internet or instigating a project to revive extinct species are all insignificant and cannot change the state of the world anymore. It emphasizes their helplessness when facing overwhelming natural forces.

Yet, despite all of this, it is only through taking a risk and leaving the isolation of Tasmania that Eve is finally able to achieve a sense of belonging by finding other Neanderthals like her. Just as when Kate had to leave the isolation of the house and ask Yassamin for help to make one of the few genuine connections she has. It is ultimately a sign of hope that Eve will live on and that she has overcome her isolation. In the end, humanity does persevere and can only survive in this new world through rebuilding communities and making connections.

by Laura Himmelmann

Considering the climate crisis that we have been facing for years now, and the slow but unstoppable changes that occur in our daily lives, James Bradley created a piece of written art which touches upon issues we usually think of as unimaginable and far off.

The title Ghost Species does allow interpretation when it comes to the plot itself, one does not first think about creations of nature that have long been extinct, a surprise that arrives when one reads the first few pages of the novel. The story takes place at the height of the climate crisis, with a low probability for humans to direct the way of nature in a more positive direction. It is a touching topic, one that makes the reader feel involved and emotionally attached.

We are first introduced to Kate Larkin, a geneticist, smart but with her own flaws marking her behavior, who is hired by Davis Hucken, an entrepreneur who has a striking resemblance, behavior-wise, to Elon Musk or even Jeff Bezos. Unlike a lot of other novels, in which we have to wait for the big reveal until the last few pages, Bradley quite literally urges the issues of the story onto us within their first meeting. A resurrection of species that have long been extinct, unreachable. While we may think immediately of stories like Jurassic Park, where we witness the rebirth of dinosaurs, we learn about Davis’s idea of breathing life into dying plants and long-lost animals such as mammoths, but it does not stop there. It goes as far as wanting to bring back human beings, to be exact Neanderthals.

Now it may seem unbelievable at first read, but the truth of this world we are living in reflects the insatiable need to be better, ‘crazier’ and to make the unspeakable true. Bradley picks up on issues that do not seem far off, nor unrealistic, always considering the moral and ethical questions we face every day. Throughout the experiment, Eve is born, Kate, however, fears that the child will never be able to have a normal life because she is different, she is something that seemed impossible, so life within glass walls, like a laboratory rat, does seem realistic. The novel also details the relationship between mother and daughter, even if it is not blood-related. Kate and Eve are depicted as bound together by love and care, which is supported by the background knowledge of Kate being unsuccessful in conceiving a child of her own.

Throughout the story, we learn just how rotten the bigger part of humanity really is, since they want to exploit Eve for science. However, they learn that she has much more to learn than she would be able to teach them. It is quite sad to witness her life be turned around several times, but it also happens to be a mirror image of our society and how we always tend to want the impossible: Once that is achieved, we see what it brings and it is not as easy as we might have hoped.

Bradley does a fantastic job at teaching the reader how important it actually is to care about the issues that surround us and to not blindly let them pass by. The story serves as a wake-up call for those who decided to sleep on our world evolving into something we cannot rewind. It plays with our consciouses and moral compasses, making us realize that change needs to be done now or it might be too late, too soon.

by Hannah Reth

In the novel Ghost Species, Kate has to deal with what it means to be a parent, a task that can pose rather difficult considering her parental relationships that are either strained or nonexistent. The novel outlines Kate’s relationship with her mother through flashbacks which suggest that a kind of role reversal occurred. Kate taking care of her mother shows the level of maturity she had to take on when she was just a child. Her hesitation to have children of her own proves that she is reluctant to make the same mistakes and potentially become a version of her mother. Especially confronted with her past in the weeks and months following her abduction of Eve, Kate has to make ends meet and finds herself in the same near-impoverished circumstances she grew up in.

However, Kate attempts to be a better mother to “her” daughter. She is involved in Eve’s upbringing and education once they return to the facility; she even panics when Eve falls sick. What differentiates her from her mother, even more, is that she involves Eve in her own upbringing. She is honest about who Eve was and under what circumstances she was conceived, fully aware that it will affect Eve’s psyche. Growing up Kate had to accept things as they were presented to her. In Eve’s case, Kate offers her the opportunity to help shape her life along the way.

It also seems that she is rather reluctant to let Eve go. Consider the fact that she rarely approves of the measures that are to be taken to aid Eve in her growth. In the facility, Eve is supposed to get some form of psychological therapy and Kate is not really happy with the idea. When a nanny is employed by the facility, Kate is immediately worried that she could have too much influence on Eve. The only person connected to the facility she is actually willing to have near Eve when it is not absolutely necessary is Jay. She even goes as far as leaving her with him, when she must organize and attend her mother’s funeral.

Her not taking Eve to the funeral also shows that Kate does not want Eve to be involved in her past. She is willing to leave her behind, rather than take her to the place that makes her feel not only deeply uncomfortable but also reminds her of her maternal issues and trauma. While on the mainland she also tries to avoid getting too involved with her mother’s life. She does what she has to do when it comes to the funeral and pays for what seems to be the bare minimum. However, this shows that Kate feels a sense of responsibility for her family.

All those instances show us that Kate is a lot more affected by her mother’s parenting than is first suggested when Eve was not yet born, and that the trauma is a lot greater than it first seemed.