The initial parts of the book are set in Prentisstown (New Elizabeth). The first chapters illustrate the life of the main character, Todd Hewitt, in a town where the Spacks infected people with a virus, Noise, which killed all the women in town and left the men with the ability to read each other’s thoughts. The book is set in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic world. Cultural beliefs can also be seen in people’s association of Prentisstown men with negative energy and darkness. The men in Prentisstown were involved in killing the women in their town resulting in their isolation from the other Settlements. Culture can be seen through Aaron, the town’s priest and his actions of smacking Todd for cursing.

Culturally, the book focuses on moral issues in society. The historical setting of the book is based on an unknown planet where people can read each other’s thoughts. Author Patrick Ness targeted children and young adults as his primary audience. “The Knife of Never Letting Go” was written and published in 2008 as a part of the “Chaos Walking” trilogy. He has also worked as a journalist for the Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Telegraph, and the Times Literary Supplement by writing criticism and other articles for these papers (Giles). Other books written by Patrick Ness include “A Monster Calls,” which was published in 2011, and won the Carnegie Medal, “More Than This” in 2013, and “The Rest of Us Live Here” in 2015. The book also won the Booktrust Teenage Prize and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal award in 2009. “The Knife of Never Letting Go” won the 2008 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. He released the other two books of this trilogy, “The Ask and the Answer” and “Monster of Men” in 20 respectively. The book, “The Knife of Never Letting Go” was the first of his “Chaos Walking” trilogy. His first story was published in 1997 in the Genre magazine and his first novel, “The Crash of Hennington,” in 2003. After graduating, he worked as a corporate writer in Los Angeles at a cable company. Ness studied at the University of Southern California where he majored in English Literature. He lived in different states in the US before moving to London in 1999. The author, Patrick Ness, was born in 1971 in Fort Belvoir, an army base in Virginia.

The knife of letting go