Andy was almost to the bottom of his list, and his feet hurt. Ninth Avenue simmered in the afternoon sun and every patch of shadow was filled with sprawled figures, old people, nursing mothers, teen-agers with their heads close together, laughing with their arms about one another. People of all ages on every side, bare and dusty limbs projecting, scattered about like corpses in the aftermath of a battle. Only the children played in the sun, but they moved about slowly and their shouts were subdued. There was a fit of screaming and sudden movement as they eddied about two boys coming from the direction of the docks, whose arms were spotted with bites and streaks of uncongealed blood. On the end of a string they carried their prize, a large gray dead rat. They would eat well tonight. In the center of the crowded street the tugtruck traffic moved at a snail´s pace, the human draught animals leaning exhaustedly into their traces, mouths gaping for air. Andy pushed through between them, looking for the Western Union office.
About the Book
It is the year 1999 and the world has become grimly, terribly overpopulated. This is the premise of Harry Harrison´s 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room! and fans of his more comic work may be surprised at this bleak, foreboding novel. But Harrison´s purpose in writing this book was serious and his concerns were real. Although his fears thankfully did not become a reality for the inhabitants of New York and the rest of the United States, the novel remains a gripping, thought-provoking work about privacy, deprivation and desperation.
A teeming New York City serves as the setting for the novel´s nimble storyline, a detective´s pursuit of the killer of a nefarious racketeer. While the novel contains elements of classic detective fiction-the hard-boiled protagonist, the seductive mistress, the portraits of corruption and perfidy-Harrison´s true concern is less the story itself and more the opportunity the story offers to take the reader on a tour of a dismal, broken world. Overpopulation has altered daily life in innumerable ways and Harrison is keenly interested in detailing the effects of this catastrophic human burden on all aspects of human relationships.
Movie lovers might recognize Make Room! Make Room! as the basis for the 1973 film, Soylent Green, which starred Charlton Heston. Although that film has become something of a cult classic, Harrison and other fans have taken issue with its interpretation of the novel. Concerned about audiences losing interest, the creators of the film made cannibalism, not overpopulation, the thematic focus. As a result, fans of the movie and critics alike will want to revisit the story in its original, un-bowdlerized form.
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