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DOMESTIC trivia include the headlines stashed in a corner waiting for the paper bank. We live with heads full of news, opening our divorce papers and Christmas presents in a muddle of thoughts about Ireland, nuclear proliferation and, perhaps, overpopulation.
Amin Maalouf's achievement in The First Century After Beatrice (Quartet pounds 14.95) is to create the picture of a domestic relationship cemented by a couple's shared public concerns. The century in question begins in the year 2,000, round about the birth of the narrator's beloved daughter Beatrice, whom he dotingly protects and cherishes whilst his journalist partner Clarence pursues first her own career ambitions and then their joint cause: awakening the world to the dangers of drugs which enable the selective conception of male children.
At first this appeals in the stably populated northern hemisphere as a way of reducing the population in the hungry, poor south. But indigenous peoples there come to fear extermination; rampant excess males tip the world further towards chaos; and in the north a few positive choices from the 16 per cent who want boys make women increasingly coveted and endangered. Thirty years into the century the imbalance has become the dominant global fear as the increasingly unstable and resentful south becomes a no-go area for northerners.
The narrator's devotion to the care of his daughter whilst his warrior partner takes on the world is a neat counterbalance to his bleak portrayal...