The Fifth Child

The Fifth Child is a short novel by the English writer Doris Lessing, first published in 1988.

Harriet and David Lovatt meet at a party in the 1960s, recognise in each other a set of old-fashioned expectations, and marry. They buy a large house in a small town within reach of London and set about having the children they both want, which the rest of their families regard as excessive. The first four children fit the life they planned. Ben, the fifth, does not: he is physically difficult from birth, seems to be something other than what the household was built to raise, and the family's happiness is dismantled by the effort of containing him. Lessing tells the story from Harriet's point of view, which means the reader sees a mother standing between a child she cannot manage and a family that wants him removed.

A sequel, Ben, in the World, followed in 2000 and dealt with what became of the child after he left home and tried to live among people who had no idea what he was.