Click on cover image to purchase a copy
MWSA Review
Micah, by Glenn Starkey is a novel based on the history of human/ape experiments in the Soviet Union in the early decades of the 1900s. Yuri Grechiko, a member of the state secret police—roughly equivalent to the SS in Nazi Germany—provided his sperm to the scientist who wanted to “mix” it with sperm from a great ape, and then impregnate slave-labor woman with the concoction…all geared to creating a super-race of warriors for Stalin.
After the scientist artificially inseminates women, Yuri has a change of heart and leads them out of bondage. He lives with two of them in the mountains, and each one gives birth to a human/ape hybrid. One female child (Alexsa) and one male (Micah). Yuri is their father, at least in part, though their mothers were different.
Both Alexsa and Micah are half-siblings but maintain a marital relationship. They live in a cave, sequestered from humans. Their father made sure they were educated, and most of the time they behave as humans, although they look like apes. Both Micah and Alexsa struggle with being neither fully ape nor completely human.
The story focuses mostly on the relationship between Micah and his father, Yuri, and reaches a climax when an encroaching secret police patrol with a butchering leader destroys their anonymity. Then, a terrible injustice is committed. Micah decides the only way to avenge the injustice is to allow his animal side to dominate him.
There are some scenes of extreme violence, including rape.
Many chapters alternate between the years the experiments were conducted in the 1920s and the years when Micha and Alexa have grown up in the 1940s. It is a nice way to handle the past as it relates to the present within the story.
It’s an interesting read, with the main character—Micah—struggling to exist in two worlds. The reader will come to love him.
Glenn Starkey writes in an easy-to-read style. Short chapters, with thoughtful or cliff-hanger endings, invite the reader to turn the page.
Review by Patricia Walkow (April 2020)
Author's Synopsis
1926, Russia. Red Terror has reigned for years with secret police, forced labor camps, and executions now a part of everyday life. Dr. Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov is obsessed with creating a human-ape hybrid and it drives him to horrific ends. Stalin's support and desire for inhuman super soldiers provides fuel for Ivanov's shocking experiments. When Yuri Grechiko, a member of the state secret police, falls in love with Sonia, a human experiment from a labor camp, he risks it all by fleeing with her and others to freedom on the Ural Mountains. There a boy and girl are born, neither human nor ape. An experiment that the mad scientist Ivanov never knew had succeeded. But Yuri's past returns to haunt him. As Stalin's secret police climb the mountains Yuri's world is brutally shattered. From the horror of shocking experiments and devastating civil wars comes Micah, a gentle forest giant. The mountains will tremble as he seeks his retribution.
ISBN/ASIN: 978-1-54399-576-3, 978-1-54399-577-0
Book Format(s): Soft cover
Review Genre: Fiction—Historical Fiction
Number of Pages: 202