Red Clocks

A worthy prequel to Atwood's Handmaiden, this dystopian novel does not seem to be either unlikely or futuristic. Set in a sodden Oregon oceanside village, Newville is home to four, really five, women: the Biographer, a teacher writing the life story of a pioneering female polar scientist; the Mother, struggling with rambunctious children and a lazyass partner; the Daughter, sixteen and vulnerable; and the Mender, despised and cherished by local women as a witch. They struggle for and against each other in a country where draconian laws have been passed that ban abortion, in vitro fertilization, adoption by single women, and procreation outside marriage. The "Personhood Amendment" uses the death penalty against abortion providers, prison show more for their patients, and all adoptions are subject to state approval. Canada is no refuge, as a "Pink Wall" with criminal penalties have been established to prevent women from crossing the border for purposes of gaining or losing progeny. The writing is a bit dense at first and it takes a while for the reader to get settled into the characters, but as each pursues her goals, it becomes a thriller and a race against time and the state. It's a very startling and urgent warning. show less

Keep Them Barefoot

Leni Zumas uses the Personhood Amendment as the impetus for her novel about the lives of four disparate women, plus a fictional 19th century historical figure, to illustrate in dramatic fashion the constraints under which many women struggle now and perhaps in the near future if certain zealots get their way. She further emphasizes her points by compartmentalizing these women by their primary roles: The Biographer, The Wife, The Daughter, and The Mender. The historical figure, an ambitious woman who doesn’t hew to the societal demands of her time, is simply a woman, itself, when you view the novel this way, a restrictive compartment.

The novel follows the lives of these women living in a small Oregon coastal fishing show more town, including how they interact with each other. The Biographer, Ro, researches and writes a biography of 19th century Arctic explorer Eivør Mínervudottir, teaches at the local high school, and tries via IVF to have a baby before her biological clock and a new law sounds expiration. The Wife, Susan, raises two children as she suffocates in her marriage to her teacher husband, who seems indifferent to her and certainly self-absorbed. The Daughter, Mattie, an adopted child, finds herself pregnant and desperate, as abortions have been outlawed and harming a fetus in anyway is a crime. The Mender, Gin, a young crone of sorts, lives in the woods, prefers the company of her animals to humans, and sells herbal remedies to townspeople. And Eivør forms something of an intermezzo between chapters not only adding a note of emphasis to the issues faced by the characters but also reminding us that severely restricting women to certain accepted roles has always been the norm.

These women prove complex, more expansive than their definitions, but also squarely within them as well. Ro nearly impoverishes herself trying to become pregnant but puts aside her desires to help, though not without much inner torment, Mattie resolve her unwanted pregnancy. Susan struggles to exit her marriage and builds up lots of resentment toward Ro, who she views as free, though Ro resents Susan partly because she has what Ro desires. Gin, for her part, can’t help but be involved with others in town, regardless of how much she wishes most to be left alone.

Hanging over all of them and affecting them in different ways is the Personhood Amendment, which steals control of their lives from them and imposes potentially severe punishments and restrictions upon them. This, for those not familiar, for in fact it is a real proposal pushed by some antiabortion groups, declares life begins at conception, triggering a whole laundry list of laws, among them murder for abortions, no contraception, and more. In the novel, this is coupled with it being illegal to go to Canada for an abortion, as you will be turned away, even arrested, at the “Pink Wall,” the requirement of two, a man and woman, as parents, and the impending end to IVF. Since all these currently don’t exist but could if some had their way, the novel has the flavor of a dystopian future.

Some may find the novel’s flow a bit disjointed and the writing a little showy, while others may not think it dystopian enough in the sense of being technologically removed from our time. But for others interested in how society works, and can work even harder, to mold women to limited expectations, the novel will resonate. show less

In the US, a constitutional amendment has recently passed declaring any fertilized cell to have the full rights of a human being, meaning that anyone who gets or provides an abortion can and will be charged with murder. Another law is about to go into effect, too, preventing single parents from adopting, because "Every Child Needs Two." In this world, we meet four women: One who is desperate to have a child of her own. One who is being driven crazy by her life with her children and her might-as-well-be-a-child husband. One who gave her own baby up for adoption, and who now lives in the woods treating other women with herbs. And a teenage girl who finds herself accidentally pregnant.

I'll be honest, I was a bit leery of this book going show more in, thinking the odds were higher than I'd like that it'd either be a heavy-handed political screed (which aren't super enjoyable even when I very much agree with them) or an incredibly depressing dystopia (which I might find a little hard to handle these days). But I think it does avoid being either of those. The situation faced by women in this all-too-plausible world is infuriating -- at least, it is if you value reproductive rights, although I imagine the novel would be infuriating in entirely different ways if you think those laws sound like fantastic ideas -- but the novel itself isn't as bleak as I'd feared. And giving us the stories of four different women (or five, if you count the snippets from the biography one of the women is writing), all with very different experiences and desires and perspectives when it comes to their own reproduction, is a great way to explore things.

All that having been said, I still didn't love it, although I keep second-guessing the reasons why. One of them is that I had trouble getting along with the writing style. Zumas hit a major misstep for me almost immediately with the way that she refuses to use her character's names when writing in their POV. That, in itself, is a literary device that can be interesting, but in this case, it turned out that all the characters know each other and readily use each other's names, so it seemed to accomplish absolutely nothing other than keeping me confused, early on, about which names went with which POV characters and who was being talked about at any given moment. I may have started muttering to myself about stupid literary gimmicks and "yet another MFA type whose writing is so 'clever' it can't get out of its own way" or words to that effect. Which is maybe unfair, and I did more or less warm up to the writing eventually, but I think that initial reaction colored a lot of my response to the whole thing.

Also not helping was the fact that I found almost all of the characters annoying. Which is probably also unfair, Hell, the carefully calibrated surgical-strike awfulness of the most irritating character in the book -- the husband of the married POV character -- is actually a fairly impressive artistic accomplishment. And the women are supposed to be flawed, with their issues and capacity for pettiness and so on no doubt being very much part of the point. Women are complicated human beings, people are judgmental because no one ever fully understands another's POV, society's attitudes about women mess with everyone's head, and so on. I get it. And, again, it did work better for me as the novel went on. But as a reading experience, it didn't exactly thrill me. Although it did leave me asking myself uncomfortable and thought-provoking questions about my own ability to sympathize with women whose experiences and desires differ significantly from my own, which I think is probably a worthwhile result in itself.

Anyway. Can't say I entirely enjoyed it, for reasons that might well be as much my fault as the author's, but I certainly did appreciate aspects of it, and in the end I'm not sorry I read it, anyway. show less

I devoured this after midnight in a Newark hotel. Great and, as others have noted, a necessary story in this moment. Not a dystopian novel — currently we’re only one heartbeat away from this reality. My only disappointment? I don’t think we’re going to get the complete Minervudottir biography. Spin-off??

I seem to be reading a lot of books in the "Angry Women" category this year, which seems appropriate. This one takes place in an alternate United States (or in the near future?), when a Personhood Amendment to the Constitution has made abortion and in vitro fertilization illegal. It alternates among four women, who are named but who, in their narratives, refer to themselves by role rather than name. The biographer is single and wants to have a child but is having difficulty conceiving. The mender gave up her child for adoption long ago and now helps women with various issues, including unwanted pregnancies. The wife is chafing in her traditional role as wife and mother and longs for an identity of her own. And the daughter is underage, show more pregnant, and desperate. A fifth woman is the biographer's subject, a nineteenth-century explorer who studied Arctic sea ice and never wanted either a husband or children. Zumas explores the interior worlds of all of these women through the lens of the restrictions placed on them by society, and even though her premise is somewhat dystopian, it also feels all too possible. What seems more shocking than young girls being jailed for contemplating aborting their pregnancies is how accepting everyone seems of the situation. The men in particular float through the story like jellyfish, untethered from responsibility, completely unaware of the struggles the women in their lives are dealing with. But Zumas does not make this a story of either hopelessness or victimhood. These women may struggle with indecision, but they do have agency and they do take charge of their own lives. Zumas's writing is often poetic, very absorbing, and both frightening and inspiring. show less

Set in the near future, Red Clocks pictures an America where a Personhood Amendment has been passed, criminalizing not just abortions, but most fertility treatments as well. Canada has agreed to erect a "pink wall,' where they detain women of child-bearing age at the border until they've taken a pregnancy test. Those that are pregnant are arrested.

Despite the overt political aspects, this is a novel about people. Ro is a high school history teacher. Now in her forties, she desperately wants a child and she's writing a biography about a female polar explorer. Susan is the wife of one of her co-workers. She's a stay-at-home mom who is struggling with that role even as her husband blithely insists that nothing is wrong, but she does need show more to clean the bathroom more often. Mattie is one of her students and Mattie is in love with a boy who wears a fedora. And Gin has removed herself from society, living outside of town, in a small cabin in the woods, she provides herbal remedies and simple cures to women. Each woman, but especially Ro, is a living, breathing presence.

Leni Zumas handles the plot-lines with the same skillful nuance that she writes her characters. Children have become commodities in this world she's written, where who has children and who doesn't is a political weapon, but this is addressed with care. This book took over while I was reading it, demanding that I ignore daily tasks in favor of another few pages. I look forward to reading more by Zumas. show less

For all of Stephen King’s monsters that he has created over the years, there is nothing as frightening as an oppressive, futuristic society that has a decent likelihood of coming true. Margaret Atwood understood this when writing her brilliant The Handmaid’s Tale. Leni Zumas is just one more author to capitalize on this fact in her novel, Red Clocks. Whereas Ms. Atwood was writing a novel that could potentially come true, Ms. Zumas’ novel is one that all but grabs its plot from current headlines as the conservative right continues to demean women and seek to destroy our right to take ownership of what happens to our body and when. The fact that there is yet another strong push to upend the Roe v. Wade decision and its pertinence show more to Ms. Zumas’ story makes this the most terrifying story of all.

What may be even worse is the fact that stories like Ms. Zumas’ only serve to remind readers that general sentiment towards women by a small but very powerful minority have not changed over the centuries. Women with strong personalities, like Eivør, or who exhibit expertise in an area, like Gin, have always been called witches and continue to be vilified for not expressing “more feminine” traits. Girls like Mattie continue to face societal scorn for getting pregnant out of wedlock, as if women are the sole instigators of pregnancy. Mothers like Susan will always face pressure from others for not appreciating their marriage and motherhood and experience doubts for wanting something more out of life. Yes, things are changing but at a glacial pace, which makes Red Clocks such a timely novel.

Moreover, unlike in Ms. Benjamin’s latest novel, Ms. Zumas gets us to care about her characters. They are achingly real in their desires, their frustrations, and their mistakes. None of the women want to break the law; they do not set out to be criminals. What they do have is a desire to do with their body and their lives what THEY want and not what others dictate. Seeing all of the women struggle is heartbreaking, all the more so because you cannot help but feel that their stories are eerily prescient as well. show less