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Red Clocks
ŷ Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Science Fiction (2018)A Popsugar most anticipated book of Fall
A Ploughshares most anticipated book of Fall
One of Publishers Weekly's most anticipated titles of Fall 2017
Five women. One question. What is a woman for?
In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo. In a small Oregon fishing town, five very different women navigate these new barriers alongside age-old questions surrounding motherhood, identity, and freedom.
Ro, a single high-school teacher, is trying to have a baby on her own, while also writing a biography of Eivor, a little-known 19th-century female polar explorer. Susan is a frustrated mother of two, trapped in a crumbling marriage. Mattie is the adopted daughter of doting parents and one of Ro's best students, who finds herself pregnant with nowhere to turn. And Gin is the gifted, forest-dwelling herbalist, or "mender," who brings all their fates together when she's arrested and put on trial in a frenzied modern-day witch hunt.
RED CLOCKS is at once a riveting drama, whose mysteries unfold with magnetic energy, and a shattering novel of ideas. In the vein of Margaret Atwood and Eileen Myles, Leni Zumas fearlessly explores the contours of female experience, evoking THE HANDMAID'S TALE for a new millennium. This is a story of resilience, transformation, and hope in tumultuous-even frightening-times.
A Ploughshares most anticipated book of Fall
One of Publishers Weekly's most anticipated titles of Fall 2017
Five women. One question. What is a woman for?
In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo. In a small Oregon fishing town, five very different women navigate these new barriers alongside age-old questions surrounding motherhood, identity, and freedom.
Ro, a single high-school teacher, is trying to have a baby on her own, while also writing a biography of Eivor, a little-known 19th-century female polar explorer. Susan is a frustrated mother of two, trapped in a crumbling marriage. Mattie is the adopted daughter of doting parents and one of Ro's best students, who finds herself pregnant with nowhere to turn. And Gin is the gifted, forest-dwelling herbalist, or "mender," who brings all their fates together when she's arrested and put on trial in a frenzied modern-day witch hunt.
RED CLOCKS is at once a riveting drama, whose mysteries unfold with magnetic energy, and a shattering novel of ideas. In the vein of Margaret Atwood and Eileen Myles, Leni Zumas fearlessly explores the contours of female experience, evoking THE HANDMAID'S TALE for a new millennium. This is a story of resilience, transformation, and hope in tumultuous-even frightening-times.
368 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 16, 2018
1,358 people are currently reading
52.7k people want to read
About the author
Leni Zumas
14books565followersLeni Zumas is the author of RED CLOCKS (Little, Brown, 2018); THE LISTENERS (Tin House, 2012); and FAREWELL NAVIGATOR: STORIES (Open City, 2008). She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she is Director of Creative Writing at Portland State University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,561 reviews
January 16, 2018
I guess we can probably expect more of these weird feminist(?) dystopias in the wake of 's Hulu series. Between this and the superhero-movie-turned-superhero-book trend, you can pretty much predict the new book trends based on what's popular on the big and small screens.
Here, Zumas imagines a United States where the Personhood Amendment gives rights to unborn embryos, outlawing abortion and IVF (because said embryos cannot give consent). The Canadian government assist by erecting a figurative "Pink Wall" across the U.S.-Canadian border, meaning that they will capture and return any woman suspected of crossing the border for an abortion or IVF.
It sounded fascinating to me. Given the political climate in the U.S. and the fervor of pro-life advocates, it is not a particularly implausible scenario. But, unfortunately, the amount of "literary" frills in made it almost impossible to enjoy (maybe that isn't the right word, but you know what I'm saying).
It is such a painfully cerebral read, and it feels to me like a book of this kind has the greatest impact when you are pulled deep into the lives and horrors of the characters, not viewing them through a distant lens. would be a horror story for many women, including myself, and yet I felt so emotionally-distanced from the story and all four (or you could say five) perspectives.
I have to assume the emotional distance is intentional. Zumas refers to the four main characters as "The Biographer" (Ro), "The Wife" (Susan), "The Daughter" (Mattie) and "The Mender" (Gin), with the fifth perspective being that of fictional explorer, Eivør Minervudottir, who "The Biographer" is writing a book about.
Each of the main four are dealing with womanhood issues that are threatened by the new laws. Ro's perspective is easily the most palatable, though we still have to sit through a vaginal exam that unfolds like this:
Yum.
Ro is trying desperately to conceive before a new law is introduced banning single parent families. Susan is something of a cliche depressed housewife, struggling with the dissatisfaction of staying home. Mattie is a teenager, pregnant, and unsure of what to do. Gin provides herbal remedies for abortion, amongst other things, and is the modern-day equivalent of a witch under the new amendment.
Zumas experiments with different styles that change as we jump from one character to another. The narrative is fractured and messy - definitely more about experimental writing than telling a compelling and/or important story. I appreciate that this will be better suited to the kind of reader I am not.
Overall, I felt the book was more concept and writing than characters and narrative structure. It really depends on what you're looking for, but I would personally expect a book with this intriguing a premise to contain a strong emotional pull and more of a plot. Oh well. I'm sure similar novels will be on the way.
| | | |
Here, Zumas imagines a United States where the Personhood Amendment gives rights to unborn embryos, outlawing abortion and IVF (because said embryos cannot give consent). The Canadian government assist by erecting a figurative "Pink Wall" across the U.S.-Canadian border, meaning that they will capture and return any woman suspected of crossing the border for an abortion or IVF.
It sounded fascinating to me. Given the political climate in the U.S. and the fervor of pro-life advocates, it is not a particularly implausible scenario. But, unfortunately, the amount of "literary" frills in made it almost impossible to enjoy (maybe that isn't the right word, but you know what I'm saying).
It is such a painfully cerebral read, and it feels to me like a book of this kind has the greatest impact when you are pulled deep into the lives and horrors of the characters, not viewing them through a distant lens. would be a horror story for many women, including myself, and yet I felt so emotionally-distanced from the story and all four (or you could say five) perspectives.
I have to assume the emotional distance is intentional. Zumas refers to the four main characters as "The Biographer" (Ro), "The Wife" (Susan), "The Daughter" (Mattie) and "The Mender" (Gin), with the fifth perspective being that of fictional explorer, Eivør Minervudottir, who "The Biographer" is writing a book about.
Each of the main four are dealing with womanhood issues that are threatened by the new laws. Ro's perspective is easily the most palatable, though we still have to sit through a vaginal exam that unfolds like this:
On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the shrill funk of an elderly cheese and one being no odor at all, how would he rank the smell of the biographer's vagina? How does it compare with the other vaginas barreling through this exam room, day in, day out, years of vaginas, a crowd of vulvic ghosts? Plenty of women don't shower beforehand, or are battling a yeast, or just happen naturally to stink in the nethers. Kalbfleisch has sniffed some ripe tangs in his time.
Yum.
Ro is trying desperately to conceive before a new law is introduced banning single parent families. Susan is something of a cliche depressed housewife, struggling with the dissatisfaction of staying home. Mattie is a teenager, pregnant, and unsure of what to do. Gin provides herbal remedies for abortion, amongst other things, and is the modern-day equivalent of a witch under the new amendment.
Zumas experiments with different styles that change as we jump from one character to another. The narrative is fractured and messy - definitely more about experimental writing than telling a compelling and/or important story. I appreciate that this will be better suited to the kind of reader I am not.
Overall, I felt the book was more concept and writing than characters and narrative structure. It really depends on what you're looking for, but I would personally expect a book with this intriguing a premise to contain a strong emotional pull and more of a plot. Oh well. I'm sure similar novels will be on the way.
| | | |
December 31, 2018
DNFed at 20%.
I just couldn't get into it!
I just couldn't get into it!
January 2, 2018
Red Clocks can be described as a dystopian novel, but it feels entirely contemporary. Instead of creating a far-off dystopian society, Leni Zumas picks up on trends in our current political climate and thinks them through. What are the consequences of making abortion illegal in the US? How does a woman trying to have a baby on her own navigate a world in which in vitro fertilization is banned and only married couples are allowed to adopt? Where do larger concepts of woman- and motherhood come into play when discussing women's health?
The author asks all these big questions in the grand scheme of things, while also maintaining a certain closeness to its four (arguably, five) main characters. She tells the story of multiple, very different women and weaves all these different narratives together beautifully. Another recent release that this book is destined to be compared to is The Power by Naomi Alderman, which I also read this year and really enjoyed, but which for me lacked a sort of emotional intimacy to its characters. Red Clocks however, reads like both a deeply intimate and emotional character study and a highly complex portrait of a near-future society. It's written incredibly lyrically and even though it's not necessarily a light read, I really enjoyed my time reading this!
--- Thank you to Little, Brown for sending me an advanced reader's copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are entirely my own though (obviously!).
The author asks all these big questions in the grand scheme of things, while also maintaining a certain closeness to its four (arguably, five) main characters. She tells the story of multiple, very different women and weaves all these different narratives together beautifully. Another recent release that this book is destined to be compared to is The Power by Naomi Alderman, which I also read this year and really enjoyed, but which for me lacked a sort of emotional intimacy to its characters. Red Clocks however, reads like both a deeply intimate and emotional character study and a highly complex portrait of a near-future society. It's written incredibly lyrically and even though it's not necessarily a light read, I really enjoyed my time reading this!
--- Thank you to Little, Brown for sending me an advanced reader's copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are entirely my own though (obviously!).
October 8, 2018
Just wanted to recommend this book to people struggling with recent political events. I pretty much ONLY feel like reading feminist dystopian fiction at this point, but this is a rare example of a book in that genre that retains a sliver of ever-more elusive hope. This book is also, in comparison to other recent examples in the genre, compellingly down to earth and credible - now even more so - as the author based its premise on actual legislation proposed by the likes of those currently empowered to help make legal decisions about and for women for probably the next thirty years. The book proposes a future in which, lacking the assistance of either state or church and in the wake of the ultimate ineffectiveness of public activism and demonstration, women turn increasingly toward the more personal aspects of the political, and toward one another, going underground if necessary, to survive and sustain and maintain some level of empowerment.
Also, I just want to comment that so many reviews of recent feminist dystopian fictions basically say something along the lines of “Ho hum, not another one of these, we already have The Handmaid’s Tale and it was perfect� - I really hope you’ve changed your minds now. Clearly we can’t have enough books about systemic oppression of women, normalization of sexual assault, slaughter of people of color through mechanisms of institutionalized racism, just to name a few. We can’t stop speaking on it, and to suggest we should, even for aesthetic reasons, seems like a symptom of internalized misogyny and/or racism. And sorry if you had your feelings hurt because you think you’re a good person who doesn’t deserve to have any aspect of your life questioned much less criticized, but these books are NOT “dangerous� either. Not any more, at least, than watching the daily news is for the sexual assault survivors with whom I work as a therapist. To not understand that is to lack a very basic understanding of the invisible privilege you enjoy. After all, it’s not the very (scientifically proven) functioning of YOUR traumatized brain that your current leader is ridiculing to crowds of great applause and acclaim.
Original review: This novel about very different women making hard personal choices and finding ways to persevere on their own terms, whatever those may be, is maybe the most healing and hopeful thing I've read since the election.
Also, I just want to comment that so many reviews of recent feminist dystopian fictions basically say something along the lines of “Ho hum, not another one of these, we already have The Handmaid’s Tale and it was perfect� - I really hope you’ve changed your minds now. Clearly we can’t have enough books about systemic oppression of women, normalization of sexual assault, slaughter of people of color through mechanisms of institutionalized racism, just to name a few. We can’t stop speaking on it, and to suggest we should, even for aesthetic reasons, seems like a symptom of internalized misogyny and/or racism. And sorry if you had your feelings hurt because you think you’re a good person who doesn’t deserve to have any aspect of your life questioned much less criticized, but these books are NOT “dangerous� either. Not any more, at least, than watching the daily news is for the sexual assault survivors with whom I work as a therapist. To not understand that is to lack a very basic understanding of the invisible privilege you enjoy. After all, it’s not the very (scientifically proven) functioning of YOUR traumatized brain that your current leader is ridiculing to crowds of great applause and acclaim.
Original review: This novel about very different women making hard personal choices and finding ways to persevere on their own terms, whatever those may be, is maybe the most healing and hopeful thing I've read since the election.
February 1, 2023
**3.5-stars**
From the very first pages, I knew this book was unique; so much so, it's actually a little hard to describe. Or, if I'm being honest, wrap my head around.
The novel follows the perspectives of four different women, plus a fifth historical perspective, who are all loosely connected to one another.
Mainly, we follow these women through vignettes of their lives, as they grapple with difficult choices based on their gender, or sexuality.
I went into this book thinking that it was set in a futuristic, dystopian world, but it wasn't.
It is very much present day, but examines how very different our society could be if just a couple of laws pertaining to female reproductive rights were changed; think alternative herstory.
It was very raw. Not shy at all about challenging societal conventions. Zumas shows courage in bringing us this story.
Although, I didn't quite understand the need for the historical perspective, and may have preferred a more cohesive narrative, I definitely think this is a good story.
From the very first pages, I knew this book was unique; so much so, it's actually a little hard to describe. Or, if I'm being honest, wrap my head around.
The novel follows the perspectives of four different women, plus a fifth historical perspective, who are all loosely connected to one another.
Mainly, we follow these women through vignettes of their lives, as they grapple with difficult choices based on their gender, or sexuality.
I went into this book thinking that it was set in a futuristic, dystopian world, but it wasn't.
It is very much present day, but examines how very different our society could be if just a couple of laws pertaining to female reproductive rights were changed; think alternative herstory.
It was very raw. Not shy at all about challenging societal conventions. Zumas shows courage in bringing us this story.
Although, I didn't quite understand the need for the historical perspective, and may have preferred a more cohesive narrative, I definitely think this is a good story.
January 16, 2018
“Red Clocks� might sound like a dystopian novel, but plenty of conservative politicians are plotting to make it a work of nonfiction. In fact, the author, Leni Zumas, has said that she drew the most frightening details of her story’s misogynistic world from “actual proposals� by men who are currently in control of our government.
Such is the state of affairs in the early 21st century. Feminist writers of speculative fiction don’t need the bizarre rituals of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 classic, “The Handmaid’s Tale,� or even the fantastical elements of Naomi Alderman’s terrific recent novel, “The Power.� Bridles designed for women’s bodies are already hanging in legislators� barns, just waiting for Ruth Bader Ginsburg to die.
The ordinariness of the world that Zumas imagines is perhaps the most unsettling aspect of “Red Clocks,� her second novel. The story is set in a small Oregon town in a future that Mike Pence can almost see if he stands on his pew. The Personhood Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has nullified Roe v. . . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
To watch the Totally Hip Video Book Review of this novel, click here:
Such is the state of affairs in the early 21st century. Feminist writers of speculative fiction don’t need the bizarre rituals of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 classic, “The Handmaid’s Tale,� or even the fantastical elements of Naomi Alderman’s terrific recent novel, “The Power.� Bridles designed for women’s bodies are already hanging in legislators� barns, just waiting for Ruth Bader Ginsburg to die.
The ordinariness of the world that Zumas imagines is perhaps the most unsettling aspect of “Red Clocks,� her second novel. The story is set in a small Oregon town in a future that Mike Pence can almost see if he stands on his pew. The Personhood Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has nullified Roe v. . . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
To watch the Totally Hip Video Book Review of this novel, click here:
March 3, 2019
All sorts of things are all over the place. I'm supposed to decipher it? Really? Overall this didn't feel like a readable material. At all. DNF. I don't want to torture myself with it anymore. It's probably very forward and front-looking and experimental and feminist and corresponds to a bunch of other buzz-words, still it's incomprehensible. It's like a bunch of books got intermixed along with some other material, probably (including oversized to-do lists, random thoughts and all sorts of notes by different people). I'm sorry to say that. I really wanted this book to amount to something more than this.
It seems that labias, vaginas, uteruses and pubic hair have gone amock and created this. Personally, I prefer all those parts to be attatched to humans, thinking ones, with personalities to show along with the rest. This is not the case here.
I didn't like its disjointed style, references to 'biographer' as well as all the hype. The emotional part felt a tad tedious. Why clocks? Why red? Why that much stuff about some president-elect? Trump? Go to France. Why all the hype?
Oh, gosh. I'm probably the most inattentive person in the world. NOW I get what is depicted on the cover. Ughhhhhh! What for, people? Why do we need to see stylised female parts on a book cover? There some deep motivation behind it? Half the population have these parts. Do men get to publish books with their parts on the cover? (*just an afterthought*)
So... I finished it and I'm most disappointed. I'm not even starting on the parallels with Margaret Atwood, which are present and real and have been left unadressed and unacknowledged (that I'm aware of). is so much more coherent and engaging and introducing the reader to the complications of a world gone horrible. This one, it's just a conceptual rant, with no strong plot, no cohesion, a lot of moralising and political premise running amok. I strongly dislike writers who try to monetise their political inclinations under the guise of writing a supposedly novel which has nothing novel about it and is a badly written rip-off from a talented, legendary writer and a bunch of political TV shows. Why exactly are the readers subjected to this, when Margaret Atwood is a wonderful writer in our universe?
Q:
Two years ago the United States Congress ratified the Personhood Amendment, which gives the constitutional right to life, liberty, and property to a fertilized egg at the moment of conception. Abortion is now illegal in all fifty states. Abortion providers can be charged with second-degree murder, abortion seekers with conspiracy to commit murder. In vitro fertilization, too, is federally banned, because the amendment outlaws the transfer of embryos from laboratory to uterus. (The embryos can’t give their consent to be moved.)
She was just quietly teaching history when it happened. Woke up one morning to a president-elect she hadn’t voted for. This man thought women who miscarried should pay for funerals for the fetal tissue and thought a lab technician who accidentally dropped an embryo during in vitro transfer was guilty of manslaughter. She had heard there was glee on the lawns of her father’s Orlando retirement village. Marching in the streets of Portland. In Newville: brackish calm.
Short of sex with some man she wouldn’t otherwise want to have sex with, Ovutran and lube-glopped vaginal wands and Dr. Kalbfleisch’s golden fingers is the only biological route left. Intrauterine insemination. At her age, not much better than a turkey baster.
She was placed on the adoption wait-list three years ago. In her parent profile she earnestly and meticulously described her job, her apartment, her favorite books, her parents, her brother (drug addiction omitted), and the fierce beauty of Newville. She uploaded a photograph that made her look friendly but responsible, fun loving but stable, easygoing but upper middle class. The coral-pink cardigan she bought to wear in this photo she later threw into the clothing donation bin outside the church.
...
Then the new president moved into the White House.
The Personhood Amendment happened.
One of the ripples in its wake: Public Law 116�72.
On January fifteenth—in less than three months—this law, also known as Every Child Needs Two, takes effect. Its mission: to restore dignity, strength, and prosperity to American families. Unmarried persons will be legally prohibited from adopting children. In addition to valid marriage licenses, all adoptions will require approval through a federally regulated agency, rendering private transactions criminal. (c)
See below some of the parts that admittedly didn't make much sense.
Q:
“Either come and deal with him yourself,� calls the wife, “or fuck off.�
Her husband stomps in, lifts the dustcover, sets the needle on the record, unleashes a bouncy guitar.
John goes quiet, wetly heaving.“We are the dinosaurs, marching, marching.“We are the dinosaurs. Whaddaya think of that?�
“The lesson he just learned,� says the wife, “is that if he screams long enough, he’ll get what he wants.�
“Well, good. It’s a hard world.”“We are the dinosaurs, marching, marching.“We are the dinosaurs. We make the earth flat!�
“Could you take him for a walk?� says the wife.
“It’s raining,� says Didier.
“His raincoat’s on the banister.�
“He doesn’t look like he wants to go for a walk.�
“Please do this one tiny thing,� she says.
“I really don’t feel like it.�
“I’m never alone.�
“Well, me neither. I’m with those trous du cul all day, five days a week.� (c)
Q:
Herd crumbs into palm.
Spray table.
Wipe down table.
Rinse cups and bowls.
Put cups and bowls in dishwasher.
Soak quinoa in bowl of water.
Rinse and chop red bell peppers.
Put strips in fridge.
Rinse quinoa in sieve.
Put clean, uncooked quinoa in fridge.
Pour water from quinoa soaking into pot of ficus tree.
Spray mist onto snake-like arms of Medusa’s head plant.
Pull clothes out of dryer in basement.
Fold clothes.
Stack clothes in hamper.
Leave hamper at bottom of stairs to second floor.
Write laundry detergent on list in wallet.Plip, plip, plip, says the kitchen tap.
Nobody on this hill even likes quinoa. ...
Plip, plip, plip.
As if Ro’s not having a kid or a book would make the wife’s life any better.
As if the wife’s having a job would make Ro’s any worse.
The rivalry is so shameful she can’t look at it.
It flickers and hangs.
It waits.(c)
Q:
“Watch the fuck out!� yells the rider, slowing and turning to look at the wife. “It’s bad enough you chose to procreate on a dying planet.�
“Dick,� she calls after him.
Admittedly she was not in the crosswalk.
Admittedly she has added more people to this steaming pile. (c)
Q:
If this cycle fails, she isn’t having a biological child.
To adopt from China, your body-mass index must be under 35, your annual household income over eighty thousand. Dollars.
To adopt from Russia, your annual household income must be at least a hundred thousand. Dollars.
To adopt from the United States—as of January 15—you must be married.Are you married, miss? (c)
Q:
The last time she had sex was almost two years ago, with Jupiter from meditation group. “Your cunt smells yummy,� he said, extending the first syllable of “yummy� into a ghastly warble. Wiped semen from the dark swirls of his belly hair and said, “You sure you’re not getting attached?�
“Scout’s honor,� said the biographer. (c)
Q:
She finishes the pineapple.
Swallows the rest of the water.
Tells her ovaries: For your patience, for your eggs, I thank you.
Tells her uterus: May you be happy.
Her blood: May you be safe.
Her brain: May you be free from suffering. (c)
Q:
If she constructs a solid argument, he’ll be convinced.But then you’d actually have to go to counseling with him.
Which might work!
Which would be the whole point.
To feel okay again. Even good.
To stop her throat from hurting when Bex asks “Do you and Daddy love each other?�
To stop reading online articles about the maladaptive coping mechanisms of kids from broken homes.
To stop brokenhomebrokenhomebrokenhome from reeling in her head.
To stop staring at the guardrails. (c)
It seems that labias, vaginas, uteruses and pubic hair have gone amock and created this. Personally, I prefer all those parts to be attatched to humans, thinking ones, with personalities to show along with the rest. This is not the case here.
I didn't like its disjointed style, references to 'biographer' as well as all the hype. The emotional part felt a tad tedious. Why clocks? Why red? Why that much stuff about some president-elect? Trump? Go to France. Why all the hype?
Oh, gosh. I'm probably the most inattentive person in the world. NOW I get what is depicted on the cover. Ughhhhhh! What for, people? Why do we need to see stylised female parts on a book cover? There some deep motivation behind it? Half the population have these parts. Do men get to publish books with their parts on the cover? (*just an afterthought*)
So... I finished it and I'm most disappointed. I'm not even starting on the parallels with Margaret Atwood, which are present and real and have been left unadressed and unacknowledged (that I'm aware of). is so much more coherent and engaging and introducing the reader to the complications of a world gone horrible. This one, it's just a conceptual rant, with no strong plot, no cohesion, a lot of moralising and political premise running amok. I strongly dislike writers who try to monetise their political inclinations under the guise of writing a supposedly novel which has nothing novel about it and is a badly written rip-off from a talented, legendary writer and a bunch of political TV shows. Why exactly are the readers subjected to this, when Margaret Atwood is a wonderful writer in our universe?
Q:
Two years ago the United States Congress ratified the Personhood Amendment, which gives the constitutional right to life, liberty, and property to a fertilized egg at the moment of conception. Abortion is now illegal in all fifty states. Abortion providers can be charged with second-degree murder, abortion seekers with conspiracy to commit murder. In vitro fertilization, too, is federally banned, because the amendment outlaws the transfer of embryos from laboratory to uterus. (The embryos can’t give their consent to be moved.)
She was just quietly teaching history when it happened. Woke up one morning to a president-elect she hadn’t voted for. This man thought women who miscarried should pay for funerals for the fetal tissue and thought a lab technician who accidentally dropped an embryo during in vitro transfer was guilty of manslaughter. She had heard there was glee on the lawns of her father’s Orlando retirement village. Marching in the streets of Portland. In Newville: brackish calm.
Short of sex with some man she wouldn’t otherwise want to have sex with, Ovutran and lube-glopped vaginal wands and Dr. Kalbfleisch’s golden fingers is the only biological route left. Intrauterine insemination. At her age, not much better than a turkey baster.
She was placed on the adoption wait-list three years ago. In her parent profile she earnestly and meticulously described her job, her apartment, her favorite books, her parents, her brother (drug addiction omitted), and the fierce beauty of Newville. She uploaded a photograph that made her look friendly but responsible, fun loving but stable, easygoing but upper middle class. The coral-pink cardigan she bought to wear in this photo she later threw into the clothing donation bin outside the church.
...
Then the new president moved into the White House.
The Personhood Amendment happened.
One of the ripples in its wake: Public Law 116�72.
On January fifteenth—in less than three months—this law, also known as Every Child Needs Two, takes effect. Its mission: to restore dignity, strength, and prosperity to American families. Unmarried persons will be legally prohibited from adopting children. In addition to valid marriage licenses, all adoptions will require approval through a federally regulated agency, rendering private transactions criminal. (c)
See below some of the parts that admittedly didn't make much sense.
Q:
“Either come and deal with him yourself,� calls the wife, “or fuck off.�
Her husband stomps in, lifts the dustcover, sets the needle on the record, unleashes a bouncy guitar.
John goes quiet, wetly heaving.“We are the dinosaurs, marching, marching.“We are the dinosaurs. Whaddaya think of that?�
“The lesson he just learned,� says the wife, “is that if he screams long enough, he’ll get what he wants.�
“Well, good. It’s a hard world.”“We are the dinosaurs, marching, marching.“We are the dinosaurs. We make the earth flat!�
“Could you take him for a walk?� says the wife.
“It’s raining,� says Didier.
“His raincoat’s on the banister.�
“He doesn’t look like he wants to go for a walk.�
“Please do this one tiny thing,� she says.
“I really don’t feel like it.�
“I’m never alone.�
“Well, me neither. I’m with those trous du cul all day, five days a week.� (c)
Q:
Herd crumbs into palm.
Spray table.
Wipe down table.
Rinse cups and bowls.
Put cups and bowls in dishwasher.
Soak quinoa in bowl of water.
Rinse and chop red bell peppers.
Put strips in fridge.
Rinse quinoa in sieve.
Put clean, uncooked quinoa in fridge.
Pour water from quinoa soaking into pot of ficus tree.
Spray mist onto snake-like arms of Medusa’s head plant.
Pull clothes out of dryer in basement.
Fold clothes.
Stack clothes in hamper.
Leave hamper at bottom of stairs to second floor.
Write laundry detergent on list in wallet.Plip, plip, plip, says the kitchen tap.
Nobody on this hill even likes quinoa. ...
Plip, plip, plip.
As if Ro’s not having a kid or a book would make the wife’s life any better.
As if the wife’s having a job would make Ro’s any worse.
The rivalry is so shameful she can’t look at it.
It flickers and hangs.
It waits.(c)
Q:
“Watch the fuck out!� yells the rider, slowing and turning to look at the wife. “It’s bad enough you chose to procreate on a dying planet.�
“Dick,� she calls after him.
Admittedly she was not in the crosswalk.
Admittedly she has added more people to this steaming pile. (c)
Q:
If this cycle fails, she isn’t having a biological child.
To adopt from China, your body-mass index must be under 35, your annual household income over eighty thousand. Dollars.
To adopt from Russia, your annual household income must be at least a hundred thousand. Dollars.
To adopt from the United States—as of January 15—you must be married.Are you married, miss? (c)
Q:
The last time she had sex was almost two years ago, with Jupiter from meditation group. “Your cunt smells yummy,� he said, extending the first syllable of “yummy� into a ghastly warble. Wiped semen from the dark swirls of his belly hair and said, “You sure you’re not getting attached?�
“Scout’s honor,� said the biographer. (c)
Q:
She finishes the pineapple.
Swallows the rest of the water.
Tells her ovaries: For your patience, for your eggs, I thank you.
Tells her uterus: May you be happy.
Her blood: May you be safe.
Her brain: May you be free from suffering. (c)
Q:
If she constructs a solid argument, he’ll be convinced.But then you’d actually have to go to counseling with him.
Which might work!
Which would be the whole point.
To feel okay again. Even good.
To stop her throat from hurting when Bex asks “Do you and Daddy love each other?�
To stop reading online articles about the maladaptive coping mechanisms of kids from broken homes.
To stop brokenhomebrokenhomebrokenhome from reeling in her head.
To stop staring at the guardrails. (c)
April 6, 2018
I have mixed feelings about
“Red Clocks�....
...disturbing issues ...
...disturbing ‘choice� vagina dialogues
...yet all in the context of brilliance- timely & important.
My review reflects my thoughts and feelings which came from reading “Red Clocks�.
I admire the creative writing style: seriously I do, but it was challenging for me to feel a close intimate connection to the women and their stories. I wanted to feel them deeper in my gut - not just intellectualize their situations. I did a few times - like when at the border of Canada, one woman was being ridiculously questioned on why she was visiting. I felt my emotions of anger begin to rise about THIS ENTIRE POSSIBILITY. WOMEN’S RIGHTS A MAJOR RISK? REALLY? WOULD WE EVER ***REALLY*** TURN BACK THE CLOCKS?
It’s just so hard to believe our world could feel SO STRONG against women’s rights to the extremes presented in this book.
AS NO FRICKEN WAY must this story EVER BE REAL.
But then again.... I never thought we’d have the President we do in our country today either.
Life doesn’t feel super duper secure at the moment. So the best reason to read this book IMO... is to wake up our own complacency sluggishness.
It wasn’t too many years ago when I was ‘shocked� and upset when “YES on 8�
passed in California. We voted against Gay Marriage. I had been watching this poll early on and was worried. I kept telling Paul... “I’m concerned�. And like most liberals in California.. Paul was complacent in the beginning as in: “don’t be silly, nothing to be concerned about -this is the Bay Area of Gay Pride�.
But soon.. the reality was waking voters up - but by then it was too late.
The only people working their ass off - NOT COMPLACENT- were people fighting like hell to make ‘sure� gays would ‘not� be allowed to marry.
It was a very sad day � literally shocking -
I grieved the day gays lost that vote.
BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD... to pull up our boots and GET TO WORK.
Thankfully... justice has finally won!!!
Many of our Gay friends are married - and all Gays have the right to marry in California now.
But it was the ‘complacency� which was a source of the problem.
So... how does what I write relate to this book?
SAME THING.
Are we too complacent to think that we will never turn back the clocks?
Do we want to see abortion rights taken away in every state in America?
In this dystopian world Vitro fertilization is banned...and a Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and and property to every embryo.
Kudos to the author for this book -
Kudos to the publisher too-
The time has come when this book has never been more important to take serious than today!!!
Did I love everything about this book? No
Was it easy to read for me? No
Am I glad I read it? YES
Do I hope this book supports me in taking action when needed? YES..
This book was a painful shot in the arm - a needed booster shot!
To be honest ... I’ve signed more petitions this year - for justice in our world .. than many years past.
We no longer can sit back and think our voice and vote doesn’t make a difference.
High Five for “Red Clocks�!
Much appreciation to the author, Leni Zumas.
The energy it had to take to write this book is amazing.
“Red Clocks�....
...disturbing issues ...
...disturbing ‘choice� vagina dialogues
...yet all in the context of brilliance- timely & important.
My review reflects my thoughts and feelings which came from reading “Red Clocks�.
I admire the creative writing style: seriously I do, but it was challenging for me to feel a close intimate connection to the women and their stories. I wanted to feel them deeper in my gut - not just intellectualize their situations. I did a few times - like when at the border of Canada, one woman was being ridiculously questioned on why she was visiting. I felt my emotions of anger begin to rise about THIS ENTIRE POSSIBILITY. WOMEN’S RIGHTS A MAJOR RISK? REALLY? WOULD WE EVER ***REALLY*** TURN BACK THE CLOCKS?
It’s just so hard to believe our world could feel SO STRONG against women’s rights to the extremes presented in this book.
AS NO FRICKEN WAY must this story EVER BE REAL.
But then again.... I never thought we’d have the President we do in our country today either.
Life doesn’t feel super duper secure at the moment. So the best reason to read this book IMO... is to wake up our own complacency sluggishness.
It wasn’t too many years ago when I was ‘shocked� and upset when “YES on 8�
passed in California. We voted against Gay Marriage. I had been watching this poll early on and was worried. I kept telling Paul... “I’m concerned�. And like most liberals in California.. Paul was complacent in the beginning as in: “don’t be silly, nothing to be concerned about -this is the Bay Area of Gay Pride�.
But soon.. the reality was waking voters up - but by then it was too late.
The only people working their ass off - NOT COMPLACENT- were people fighting like hell to make ‘sure� gays would ‘not� be allowed to marry.
It was a very sad day � literally shocking -
I grieved the day gays lost that vote.
BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD... to pull up our boots and GET TO WORK.
Thankfully... justice has finally won!!!
Many of our Gay friends are married - and all Gays have the right to marry in California now.
But it was the ‘complacency� which was a source of the problem.
So... how does what I write relate to this book?
SAME THING.
Are we too complacent to think that we will never turn back the clocks?
Do we want to see abortion rights taken away in every state in America?
In this dystopian world Vitro fertilization is banned...and a Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and and property to every embryo.
Kudos to the author for this book -
Kudos to the publisher too-
The time has come when this book has never been more important to take serious than today!!!
Did I love everything about this book? No
Was it easy to read for me? No
Am I glad I read it? YES
Do I hope this book supports me in taking action when needed? YES..
This book was a painful shot in the arm - a needed booster shot!
To be honest ... I’ve signed more petitions this year - for justice in our world .. than many years past.
We no longer can sit back and think our voice and vote doesn’t make a difference.
High Five for “Red Clocks�!
Much appreciation to the author, Leni Zumas.
The energy it had to take to write this book is amazing.
January 18, 2018
I could go on, and on, and on, and on about this book, but really the most important thing I can say is that this is now an all-time favorite. It is absolutely brilliant, and I expect to see it not only on "Best Books of the Year" lists, but also "Best Books of the Decade." It's that good.
We follow five different women whose lives interweave in a small coastal town in Oregon. Their world, though very similar to our own, has passed a "Personhood Amendment" recognizing fetuses as full citizens. The most obvious repercussion of this is that abortion is now illegal, but Zumas dives deep into the actual implications of such an amendment. Women and girls who seek abortion are tried with conspiracy to commit murder. In vitro fertilization is also illegal. International relations are affected as women cross borders with the goals of both ending pregnancies and becoming pregnant. Through the lens of the five women we follow, Zumas examines the repercussions what becomes of human nature when you deny women agency over their own bodies. As a backdrop for the rest of the narrative, it's perfectly executed.
Zumas's writing is a bit experimental, and it works so, so well. It took me a while to pick up on exactly what Zumas is doing, but she often omits the subjects of sentences and writes using fragments. In every case I could see, the grammatical subject was also the subject of that particular chapter, which is to say one of the five women. Much of the book is dedicated to the varied ways in which these women don't have control over their own lives, don't have agency, and by removing them as the subjects of sentences, Zumas creates a beautiful syntactical construction that mirrors the themes of the book. Little things like this, small but brilliant writing choices, are scattered throughout the novel.
I started this review by saying I could go on basically forever about how much I love this book. I'll cut myself off, and just say that Red Clocks is gorgeously, boldly written. It's timely. It's powerful. It's one of the best books I've ever read.
We follow five different women whose lives interweave in a small coastal town in Oregon. Their world, though very similar to our own, has passed a "Personhood Amendment" recognizing fetuses as full citizens. The most obvious repercussion of this is that abortion is now illegal, but Zumas dives deep into the actual implications of such an amendment. Women and girls who seek abortion are tried with conspiracy to commit murder. In vitro fertilization is also illegal. International relations are affected as women cross borders with the goals of both ending pregnancies and becoming pregnant. Through the lens of the five women we follow, Zumas examines the repercussions what becomes of human nature when you deny women agency over their own bodies. As a backdrop for the rest of the narrative, it's perfectly executed.
Zumas's writing is a bit experimental, and it works so, so well. It took me a while to pick up on exactly what Zumas is doing, but she often omits the subjects of sentences and writes using fragments. In every case I could see, the grammatical subject was also the subject of that particular chapter, which is to say one of the five women. Much of the book is dedicated to the varied ways in which these women don't have control over their own lives, don't have agency, and by removing them as the subjects of sentences, Zumas creates a beautiful syntactical construction that mirrors the themes of the book. Little things like this, small but brilliant writing choices, are scattered throughout the novel.
I started this review by saying I could go on basically forever about how much I love this book. I'll cut myself off, and just say that Red Clocks is gorgeously, boldly written. It's timely. It's powerful. It's one of the best books I've ever read.
Read
June 25, 2022(I went to find this book review for a news article link, but the entire review had been wiped! Maybe it was too long? I pieced it together again from Netgalley and a draft with quotes. I'm going to try to put my link section in the comments instead)
Four womennavigate a world where reproductive rights are being chipped away. Their options are beginning to run out, both biologically and legally
The scenario is realistic, reminiscent of (some were later overturned by judges). The changes to United States laws don't happen overnight; there's a slow creep of government restrictions. Women’s health clinics close because they can’t afford to make federally-mandated renovations. Second-trimester abortions are banned in all cases. Doctors must attempt to convince womengoing in for first-trimester abortions to change their minds. Not too long after, "a fringe idea, a farce� becomes a reality. Congress enacts the Personhood Amendment, which gives the "constitutional right to life, liberty, and property to a fertilized egg at the moment of conception.� By the time we meet the four women in this novel, the content of the amendment and the laws that follow introduce a number of restrictionsrelating toreproductive rights:
� Abortion is prohibited in all fifty states
� In vitro fertilization is federally banned
� Women who miscarry must pay for funerals
� Abortion providers can be charged with second-degree murder
� Women who seek abortions can be charged with conspiracy to commit murder
•Only heterosexual, married couples are allowed to adopt
� The "Pink Wall" prevents American women from going to Canada.
Suddenly, a broad swath of people—bothpeople who want to be parents and those who don't—have criminal inclinations or at very least are treated as an underclasss.
Red Clocks follows four women in different stages of life. It also includes excerpts from one character's writing on a nineteenth-century woman who was dedicated scientist despite the hurdles she faced. The modern women all have different roles in life, but the one they grapple with most is mother. I liked the contrast between THE BIOGRAPHERandTHE DAUGHTER the most. THE MOTHER'S chapters were my least favorite.I was already having trouble with the writing style, sonot knowing how the characters were connected or their names was a source of frustration for me, especially with THE MOTHER. The wait for answers didn't give me any great thrill, so I'm going to to go ahead and talk about it.Once I saw how all the characters were connected, my emotional involvement increased.
THE BIOGRAPHER (Ro) -A forty-two-year-old high school teacher whodesperately wants a child but her time is running out thinks to her own body and the government.
THE DAUGHTER (Mattie) A 15-year-old girl who has a great future ahead of her. She was adopted and often wonders about her maternal lineage. Now she’s pregnant herself and wants not be. The weeks are passing quickly. Mattie is one of Ro's students.
THE MENDER (Gin) - A natural healer who's confronted with an interesting dilemma.Gin gave ababy up for adoption when she was a teen, but never lost her curiosity about the child. Her practices in the old ways make her a source of suspicion and she becomes the victim of a modern-day witch hunt.
THE MOTHER (Susan) - A frustrated stay-at-home mom in an unhappy marriage with an annoying husband.She was in law school when she got pregnant with her first child. She chose to fully immerse herself in motherhood, but now she's overwhelmed and needs a break. While all the laws in the US were changing, she was caught up in her own life. Her husband Didier works with Ro. Ro and Susanresent each other. When her Didier told his child to “Use your NPR voice, chouchou,� I knew these people were going toirritate me for the rest of the story! ;)
Eivør Mínervudottír - In between the present day stories, excerpts from The Biographer/Ro's writing on the nineteenth-century polar hydrologist who made revolutionary discoveries in the field. Despite the centuries between Eivør and the women in the story, there areparallels. (Freezer auntmade my skin crawl, so I liked it when her reason for being clicked for me!)
Ro's story resonated with me the most. It reminded me of one of the when a character who never wanted children discovers that she's infertile. What she thought was her choice was never actually in her future and she grieves that choice being taken away from her. Ro had never wanted children in her most fertile years, but as the clock ticks closer to menopause she's in a rush to concieve. What causes a previously content person to suddenly be wanting? Is this a biological phenomenon, influence fromsociety's demands, ora little of both? I had a panicky "OMG MY BODY IS DISINTEGRATING" moment the second I turned 35. Aspeople I knew when they were babiesbegin having their own babies, I'veoften wondered if I've "justified my existence" on this planet. It was interesting andcathartic for me to witness Rowrestle with these issues. (I read Baby Teeth next and that knocked any vestiges of existential crisis out of my head!)
There are so many rage-inducing scenes, both because of what these women have to deal with from the outside world and how they deal with each other. Sometimes it's the smallest incidents that make me the angriest. In one part, Mínervudottír makes an important observation about the ice and the captain dismissively responds, “And will you be pointing out the snow fairies too?� A few pages later, the sailors see narwhals and start unironically yelling about "unicorns." At another point, Ro asks the doctor about a condition that might be preventing her from getting pregnant. He's dismissive of the idea, but agrees to test her—then acts like it was his idea all along when the results come in! Ro also likes to make lists and one of the most emotional ones is "Accusations from the World," where she details all the baggage society saddles her with because of her personal choices.
� As meaningful asmany of the section wereforme,I couldn't break past the surface. The writing style is choppy andwordplay frustrates me. It’s not bad,but it's not a style I enjoy reading. The language makes the message cloudy.
� I also have a hard time connecting with characters who seem to exist in piece of performance art, like a scene where Susan artfully burns chicken breasts.
� Gross descriptions of body parts and fluids -Of all the things I have the stomach to read, it's descriptions of body fluids and hair that make me retch. I'm fine with a few scenes (White Bodies), but it makes my skin crawl when it's threaded throughout the whole book: wet "scabbards," glistening" fingers, and SO MUCH pubic hair. (Helpful hint: If you have similar issues,avoid the movie ! I still gag thinking about it!)
� It didn't make me more empathetic towards anyone I wasn't already empathetic towards. If you have negative feelings coming into the book, you'll probably have a negative feeling at the end. It works more as a call to action. It made me more aware of my own "splinters of glass" that distort my perspective.
Messages to think about:
� The effects of complacency and selfishness-Our own selfish wantsor being caught up in our own lives can cause us to betray or forget our values. So much of what happened in this story happened notbecause most wanted it it, but because the majority was disengaged.Remain steadfastmeaningful action. retreat into our own lives
� Resentments against others are more about things that are lacking in ourselves. Ro resents Susan's perfect life. Susan resents Ro's professional aspirations and other mothers who she sees as more perfect than her.All these characters should be on the same side, but they demean and sabotage each other instead. One of the bright spots is Ro's supportive friend Penny who lives her life the way she wants with no apologies.
� "It was never yours." - As much as it hurts to admit, Ro has to learn she isn't entitled to something no matter how badly she wants it. Other characters realize that their children are their own people, not just an extension so them: "The girl is continuing herself."
� "Why could I stand to see the whales killed, but not the lambs?" - What makes usvalue one form of lifeover another? This question is interesting from manyseveral angles and extends beyond the issue of reproductive rights.
� "She did not leave behind money or property or a book or a child, but her corpse kept alive creatures who, in turn, kept other creatures alive. Into other bodies she went, but also other brains." - There are multiple ways our legacy lives on, not just through the passing of genes.
The overarching story is a cautionary tale about the things that happen when we're not looking. Through the lens of this fictional world, we're meant to see a glimpse of the real world. There are protests and celebrations as the new laws are enacted, but most people have retreated into their own lives. When most are complacent, the few have the power to make the decisions for the many. As a history teacher, Ro knows "how many horrors are legitimated in public daylight, against the will of most of the people." There are often instances in history where the majority opinion in the United States is out of line with the ruling party's platform. Infighting between those in those in the majority further decreases their voting power. In Dead Center, former congressman Jason Altmire writes about how all but the extremes have disengaged from politics. What does this mean for the country's future? Whatever happens, we all have to deal with the consequences� sometimes in ways we didn't anticipate.
On a personal level, these women have found themselves in unexpected situations. There are wide gaps between where they are and where they want to be, but also who they are and what's expected of them. Regardless of the choices they make, judgments and accusations wait around every corner. Will these women be able to shed society's judgments and forge their own path? Will being confronted with the consequences of the new laws awaken their sense of purpose and their duty to their fellow citizens? Red Clocks acts as both a call to action and a mirror to self. It's a thought-provoking novel that evoked strong emotions, but I just couldn't climb the wall between me and the characters.
News Articles that raise similar issues:
•� (New York Times: 2014) Related to the creation of an unlikely class of criminals. The "i-would-nevers" sometimes find us in unexpected ways. Abortion is an understandably emotional issue, but it's important to objectively think about all the implications of laws. Are the trade-offs worth it? Are there better ways to reachthe intended goals?
•Marlise Munozwas fourteen weeks pregnant when she was declared brain dead. Her husband and parents wereready to carry out her wishes and withdraw life support, but the hospital insisted on keeping her alive because of a Texas law declaring that "life-sustainingtreatment" cannot be withheld from a pregnant patient. Who should be the deciding factor in a situation like this: the woman and her family or Texan voters? ,but laws overriding a pregnant patient's advanced directives remain.
•� - The gray areas. (This article is more politically charged.)
If wrecked in this vessel, we wreck together.
Four womennavigate a world where reproductive rights are being chipped away. Their options are beginning to run out, both biologically and legally
Start from the beginning. Except there is no beginning. Can the biographer remember first thinking, feeling, or deciding she wanted to be someone’s mother? The original moment of longing to let a bulb of lichen grow in her until it came out human? The longing is widely endorsed. Legislators, aunts, and advertisers approve. Which makes the longing, she thinks, a little suspicious. Babies once were abstractions. They were Maybe I do, but not now. The biographer used to sneer at talk of biological deadlines, believing the topic of baby craziness to be crap for lifestyle magazines. Women who worried about ticking clocks were the same women who traded salmon-loaf recipes and asked their husbands to clean the gutters. She was not and never would be one of them.
Then, suddenly, she was one of them. Not the gutters, but the clock.
The scenario is realistic, reminiscent of (some were later overturned by judges). The changes to United States laws don't happen overnight; there's a slow creep of government restrictions. Women’s health clinics close because they can’t afford to make federally-mandated renovations. Second-trimester abortions are banned in all cases. Doctors must attempt to convince womengoing in for first-trimester abortions to change their minds. Not too long after, "a fringe idea, a farce� becomes a reality. Congress enacts the Personhood Amendment, which gives the "constitutional right to life, liberty, and property to a fertilized egg at the moment of conception.� By the time we meet the four women in this novel, the content of the amendment and the laws that follow introduce a number of restrictionsrelating toreproductive rights:
� Abortion is prohibited in all fifty states
� In vitro fertilization is federally banned
� Women who miscarry must pay for funerals
� Abortion providers can be charged with second-degree murder
� Women who seek abortions can be charged with conspiracy to commit murder
•Only heterosexual, married couples are allowed to adopt
� The "Pink Wall" prevents American women from going to Canada.
Suddenly, a broad swath of people—bothpeople who want to be parents and those who don't—have criminal inclinations or at very least are treated as an underclasss.
In a place that is neither mind nor heart, or both at once, she wants an ashy line down the center of a round belly; she wants nausea. Susan’s marks of motherhood: spider veins at the knee backs, loose stomach skin, lowered breasts. Affronts to vanity worn as badges of the ultimate accomplishment. But why does she want them, really? Because Susan has them? Because the Salem bookstore manager has them? Because she always vaguely assumed she would have them herself? Or does the desire come from some creaturely place, pre-civilized, some biological throb that floods her bloodways with the message Make more of yourself! To repeat, not to improve. It doesn’t matter to the ancient throb if she does good works in this short life—if she publishes, for instance, a magnificent book on Eivør Mínervudottír that would give people pleasure and knowledge. The throb simply wants another human machine that can, in turn, make another.
Red Clocks follows four women in different stages of life. It also includes excerpts from one character's writing on a nineteenth-century woman who was dedicated scientist despite the hurdles she faced. The modern women all have different roles in life, but the one they grapple with most is mother. I liked the contrast between THE BIOGRAPHERandTHE DAUGHTER the most. THE MOTHER'S chapters were my least favorite.I was already having trouble with the writing style, sonot knowing how the characters were connected or their names was a source of frustration for me, especially with THE MOTHER. The wait for answers didn't give me any great thrill, so I'm going to to go ahead and talk about it.Once I saw how all the characters were connected, my emotional involvement increased.
THE BIOGRAPHER (Ro) -A forty-two-year-old high school teacher whodesperately wants a child but her time is running out thinks to her own body and the government.
THE DAUGHTER (Mattie) A 15-year-old girl who has a great future ahead of her. She was adopted and often wonders about her maternal lineage. Now she’s pregnant herself and wants not be. The weeks are passing quickly. Mattie is one of Ro's students.
THE MENDER (Gin) - A natural healer who's confronted with an interesting dilemma.Gin gave ababy up for adoption when she was a teen, but never lost her curiosity about the child. Her practices in the old ways make her a source of suspicion and she becomes the victim of a modern-day witch hunt.
THE MOTHER (Susan) - A frustrated stay-at-home mom in an unhappy marriage with an annoying husband.She was in law school when she got pregnant with her first child. She chose to fully immerse herself in motherhood, but now she's overwhelmed and needs a break. While all the laws in the US were changing, she was caught up in her own life. Her husband Didier works with Ro. Ro and Susanresent each other. When her Didier told his child to “Use your NPR voice, chouchou,� I knew these people were going toirritate me for the rest of the story! ;)
Eivør Mínervudottír - In between the present day stories, excerpts from The Biographer/Ro's writing on the nineteenth-century polar hydrologist who made revolutionary discoveries in the field. Despite the centuries between Eivør and the women in the story, there areparallels. (Freezer auntmade my skin crawl, so I liked it when her reason for being clicked for me!)
It’s much more than the coloring: they are shaped like their parents, Bex with Didier’s shadowy eye sockets, John with Susan’s elfin chin—small faces imprinted by two traceable lineages. They are the products of desire: sexual, yes, but more importantly (in the age of contraception, at least) they come from the desire to recur. Give me the chance to repeat myself. Give me a life lived again, and bigger. Give me a self to take care of, and better. Again, please, again! We’re wired, it’s said, to want repeating. To want seed and soil, egg and shell, or so it’s said. Give me a bucket and give me a bell. Give me a cow with her udders a-swell. Give me the calf—long eyes, long tongue—who clamps the teat and sucks.
Ro's story resonated with me the most. It reminded me of one of the when a character who never wanted children discovers that she's infertile. What she thought was her choice was never actually in her future and she grieves that choice being taken away from her. Ro had never wanted children in her most fertile years, but as the clock ticks closer to menopause she's in a rush to concieve. What causes a previously content person to suddenly be wanting? Is this a biological phenomenon, influence fromsociety's demands, ora little of both? I had a panicky "OMG MY BODY IS DISINTEGRATING" moment the second I turned 35. Aspeople I knew when they were babiesbegin having their own babies, I'veoften wondered if I've "justified my existence" on this planet. It was interesting andcathartic for me to witness Rowrestle with these issues. (I read Baby Teeth next and that knocked any vestiges of existential crisis out of my head!)
There are so many rage-inducing scenes, both because of what these women have to deal with from the outside world and how they deal with each other. Sometimes it's the smallest incidents that make me the angriest. In one part, Mínervudottír makes an important observation about the ice and the captain dismissively responds, “And will you be pointing out the snow fairies too?� A few pages later, the sailors see narwhals and start unironically yelling about "unicorns." At another point, Ro asks the doctor about a condition that might be preventing her from getting pregnant. He's dismissive of the idea, but agrees to test her—then acts like it was his idea all along when the results come in! Ro also likes to make lists and one of the most emotional ones is "Accusations from the World," where she details all the baggage society saddles her with because of her personal choices.
Accusations from the world.
1. You’re too old.
2. If you can’t have a child the natural way, you shouldn’t have one at all.
3. Every child needs two parents.
4. Children raised by single mothers are more liable to rape/murder/drug-take/score low on standardized tests.
5. You’re too old.
6. You should’ve thought of this earlier.
7. You’re selfish.
8. You’re doing something unnatural.
9. How is that child going to feel when she finds out her father is an anonymous masturbator?
10. Your body is a grizzled husk.
11. You’re too old, sad spinster!
12. Are you only doing this because you’re lonely?
...
13. Preferring one’s own company is pathological.
14. Human beings were designed for companionship.
15. Why didn’t you try harder to find a mate?
16. Married people live longer, healthier lives.
17. Do you think anyone actually believes that you’re happy on your own?
18. It’s creepy that you relate so much to lighthouse keepers.
� As meaningful asmany of the section wereforme,I couldn't break past the surface. The writing style is choppy andwordplay frustrates me. It’s not bad,but it's not a style I enjoy reading. The language makes the message cloudy.
� I also have a hard time connecting with characters who seem to exist in piece of performance art, like a scene where Susan artfully burns chicken breasts.
� Gross descriptions of body parts and fluids -Of all the things I have the stomach to read, it's descriptions of body fluids and hair that make me retch. I'm fine with a few scenes (White Bodies), but it makes my skin crawl when it's threaded throughout the whole book: wet "scabbards," glistening" fingers, and SO MUCH pubic hair. (Helpful hint: If you have similar issues,avoid the movie ! I still gag thinking about it!)
� It didn't make me more empathetic towards anyone I wasn't already empathetic towards. If you have negative feelings coming into the book, you'll probably have a negative feeling at the end. It works more as a call to action. It made me more aware of my own "splinters of glass" that distort my perspective.
The new laws turn the girl into a criminal, Gin Percival into a criminal, the biographer herself . . . . into a criminal. If not for her comparing mind and covetous heart, the biographer could feel compassion for her fellow criminals. Instead she feels a splinter of glass.
Messages to think about:
� The effects of complacency and selfishness-Our own selfish wantsor being caught up in our own lives can cause us to betray or forget our values. So much of what happened in this story happened notbecause most wanted it it, but because the majority was disengaged.Remain steadfastmeaningful action. retreat into our own lives
� Resentments against others are more about things that are lacking in ourselves. Ro resents Susan's perfect life. Susan resents Ro's professional aspirations and other mothers who she sees as more perfect than her.All these characters should be on the same side, but they demean and sabotage each other instead. One of the bright spots is Ro's supportive friend Penny who lives her life the way she wants with no apologies.
� "It was never yours." - As much as it hurts to admit, Ro has to learn she isn't entitled to something no matter how badly she wants it. Other characters realize that their children are their own people, not just an extension so them: "The girl is continuing herself."
� "Why could I stand to see the whales killed, but not the lambs?" - What makes usvalue one form of lifeover another? This question is interesting from manyseveral angles and extends beyond the issue of reproductive rights.
� "She did not leave behind money or property or a book or a child, but her corpse kept alive creatures who, in turn, kept other creatures alive. Into other bodies she went, but also other brains." - There are multiple ways our legacy lives on, not just through the passing of genes.
The overarching story is a cautionary tale about the things that happen when we're not looking. Through the lens of this fictional world, we're meant to see a glimpse of the real world. There are protests and celebrations as the new laws are enacted, but most people have retreated into their own lives. When most are complacent, the few have the power to make the decisions for the many. As a history teacher, Ro knows "how many horrors are legitimated in public daylight, against the will of most of the people." There are often instances in history where the majority opinion in the United States is out of line with the ruling party's platform. Infighting between those in those in the majority further decreases their voting power. In Dead Center, former congressman Jason Altmire writes about how all but the extremes have disengaged from politics. What does this mean for the country's future? Whatever happens, we all have to deal with the consequences� sometimes in ways we didn't anticipate.
On a personal level, these women have found themselves in unexpected situations. There are wide gaps between where they are and where they want to be, but also who they are and what's expected of them. Regardless of the choices they make, judgments and accusations wait around every corner. Will these women be able to shed society's judgments and forge their own path? Will being confronted with the consequences of the new laws awaken their sense of purpose and their duty to their fellow citizens? Red Clocks acts as both a call to action and a mirror to self. It's a thought-provoking novel that evoked strong emotions, but I just couldn't climb the wall between me and the characters.
News Articles that raise similar issues:
•� (New York Times: 2014) Related to the creation of an unlikely class of criminals. The "i-would-nevers" sometimes find us in unexpected ways. Abortion is an understandably emotional issue, but it's important to objectively think about all the implications of laws. Are the trade-offs worth it? Are there better ways to reachthe intended goals?
"The principle at the heart of contemporary efforts to end legal abortion is that fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses are persons or at least have separate rights that must be protected by the state. In each of the cases we identified, this same rationale provided the justification for the deprivation of pregnant women’s physical liberty, as well as of the right to medical decision making, medical privacy, bodily integrity and, in one case, the woman’s right to life.
Many of the pregnant women subjected to this mistreatment are themselves profoundly opposed to abortion. Yet it was precisely the legal arguments for recriminalizing abortion that were used to strip them of their rights to dignity and liberty in the context of labor and delivery. These cases, individually and collectively, highlight what is so often missed when the focus is on attacking or defending abortion, namely that all pregnant women are at risk of losing a wide range of fundamental rights that are at the core of constitutional personhood in theUnited States."
•Marlise Munozwas fourteen weeks pregnant when she was declared brain dead. Her husband and parents wereready to carry out her wishes and withdraw life support, but the hospital insisted on keeping her alive because of a Texas law declaring that "life-sustainingtreatment" cannot be withheld from a pregnant patient. Who should be the deciding factor in a situation like this: the woman and her family or Texan voters? ,but laws overriding a pregnant patient's advanced directives remain.
•� - The gray areas. (This article is more politically charged.)
April 9, 2018
”The sea does not ask permission or wait for instruction. It doesn’t suffer from not knowing what on earth, exactly, it is meant to do. Today its walls are high, white lather torn, crashing hard at the sea stacks. ‘Angry sea,� people say, but to the biographer the ascribing of human feeling to a body so inhumanly itself is wrong. The water heaves up for reasons they don’t have names for.�
”She was just quietly teaching history when it happened. Woke up one morning to a president-elect she hadn’t voted for.�
”The Personhood Amendment happened.
“One of the ripples in its wake: Public Law 116-72.
“On January fifteenth—in less than three months—this law, also known as Every Child Needs Two, take effect. Its mission: to restore dignity, strength, and prosperity to American families.
Unmarried persons will be legally prohibited from adopting children. In addition to valid marriage licenses, all adoptions will require approval through a federally regulated agency, rendering private transactions criminal.�
We see this story unfold through the eyes of four women, The Biographer � Ro, who is writing a book about Eivør Mínervudottír, The Daughter � Mattie, a student, adopted, with dreams of attending an esteemed math school finds herself pregnant around the time her boyfriend has moved on to another girl, The Wife � Susan, whose thoughts are about her dissatisfaction with her life, her marriage, the distance she feels between what she has and what she wants, and The Mender � Gin, a woman who the townspeople think of as a bit of a hermit who might be a witch, a woman who lives alone in the forest and provides “cures� for ailments and assorted other troubles, for those who come seeking.
”Start from the beginning. Except there is no beginning. Can the biographer remember first thinking, feeling, or deciding she wanted to be someone’s mother? The original moment of longing to let a bulb of lichen grow in her until it came out human? The longing is widely endorsed. Legislators, aunts, and advertisers approve. Which makes the longing, she thinks, a little suspicious.
“Babies once were abstractions. They were Maybe I do, but not now. The biographer used to sneer at talk of biological deadlines, believing the topic of baby craziness to be crap for lifestyle magazines. Women who worried about ticking clocks were the same women who traded salmon-loaf recipes and asked their husbands to clean the gutters. She was not and never would be one of them.
“Then suddenly, she was one of them. Not the gutters, but the clock.�
This is a dystopian story, but more than anything it seems to be a story that reminds us what can happen when we aren’t actively engaged, voicing our opinions in ways that matter regarding the decisions made by those in power.
But� while this has a powerful message, and occasionally beautiful writing, connecting to the characters and the story wasn’t always easy. This wasn’t so much an “enjoyable� read as one I appreciated the reminder of the ultimate cost of complacency.
”If wrecked in this vessel, we wreck together.�
Many thanks, once again, to the Public Library system, and the many Librarians that manage, organize and keep it running, for the loan of this book!
”She was just quietly teaching history when it happened. Woke up one morning to a president-elect she hadn’t voted for.�
”The Personhood Amendment happened.
“One of the ripples in its wake: Public Law 116-72.
“On January fifteenth—in less than three months—this law, also known as Every Child Needs Two, take effect. Its mission: to restore dignity, strength, and prosperity to American families.
Unmarried persons will be legally prohibited from adopting children. In addition to valid marriage licenses, all adoptions will require approval through a federally regulated agency, rendering private transactions criminal.�
We see this story unfold through the eyes of four women, The Biographer � Ro, who is writing a book about Eivør Mínervudottír, The Daughter � Mattie, a student, adopted, with dreams of attending an esteemed math school finds herself pregnant around the time her boyfriend has moved on to another girl, The Wife � Susan, whose thoughts are about her dissatisfaction with her life, her marriage, the distance she feels between what she has and what she wants, and The Mender � Gin, a woman who the townspeople think of as a bit of a hermit who might be a witch, a woman who lives alone in the forest and provides “cures� for ailments and assorted other troubles, for those who come seeking.
”Start from the beginning. Except there is no beginning. Can the biographer remember first thinking, feeling, or deciding she wanted to be someone’s mother? The original moment of longing to let a bulb of lichen grow in her until it came out human? The longing is widely endorsed. Legislators, aunts, and advertisers approve. Which makes the longing, she thinks, a little suspicious.
“Babies once were abstractions. They were Maybe I do, but not now. The biographer used to sneer at talk of biological deadlines, believing the topic of baby craziness to be crap for lifestyle magazines. Women who worried about ticking clocks were the same women who traded salmon-loaf recipes and asked their husbands to clean the gutters. She was not and never would be one of them.
“Then suddenly, she was one of them. Not the gutters, but the clock.�
This is a dystopian story, but more than anything it seems to be a story that reminds us what can happen when we aren’t actively engaged, voicing our opinions in ways that matter regarding the decisions made by those in power.
But� while this has a powerful message, and occasionally beautiful writing, connecting to the characters and the story wasn’t always easy. This wasn’t so much an “enjoyable� read as one I appreciated the reminder of the ultimate cost of complacency.
”If wrecked in this vessel, we wreck together.�
Many thanks, once again, to the Public Library system, and the many Librarians that manage, organize and keep it running, for the loan of this book!
April 21, 2018
I can see why this is getting so much coverage after the recent tv success of coinciding with a veritable flood of news coverage that has highlighted the position of women as second class citizens all over the world. Inevitably, books which use this kind of near-future/dystopia to address contemporary issues, eg , are going to be the next big thing.
The problem is that that's how this book feels, like it was written as an experiment to fill a publishing hole- while the issues it tackles are important, it has no real heart. It's experimental style manages to be both cliche and irritating- the choppy sentences, the casual formatting, the loose connections apparently creating a cohesive whole. The women even start off being unnamed, but that overused means of creating a nonperson or every-person is then quickly undermined by them being identified by other characters. The women are, for the most part, bland and conform to the stereotypes this kind of apparently feminist writing is supposed to combat- the unappreciated wife, the spinster school marm, the witch put on trial for witchcraft? Perhaps their choices in this new world are supposed to set them apart, but none of their challenges could be linked to the dystopian theme of the book in any real sense- their conflicts are all happening right now to women in apparently civilised, enlightened countries, so what's the point in creating this near-future world? The struggle for abortion? The cost of IVF? Beaten or undervalued wives? 'Different' women being singled out for abuse? There's absolutely nothing new added here, no particular point made, nothing that hasn't been said before in better books. I mean, just read for a start.
ARC via Netgalley
The problem is that that's how this book feels, like it was written as an experiment to fill a publishing hole- while the issues it tackles are important, it has no real heart. It's experimental style manages to be both cliche and irritating- the choppy sentences, the casual formatting, the loose connections apparently creating a cohesive whole. The women even start off being unnamed, but that overused means of creating a nonperson or every-person is then quickly undermined by them being identified by other characters. The women are, for the most part, bland and conform to the stereotypes this kind of apparently feminist writing is supposed to combat- the unappreciated wife, the spinster school marm, the witch put on trial for witchcraft? Perhaps their choices in this new world are supposed to set them apart, but none of their challenges could be linked to the dystopian theme of the book in any real sense- their conflicts are all happening right now to women in apparently civilised, enlightened countries, so what's the point in creating this near-future world? The struggle for abortion? The cost of IVF? Beaten or undervalued wives? 'Different' women being singled out for abuse? There's absolutely nothing new added here, no particular point made, nothing that hasn't been said before in better books. I mean, just read for a start.
ARC via Netgalley
April 1, 2018
I circled around this book for a long time, not wanting to read another dystopian breeder novel. But I eventually decided to try it, and I'm glad I did. Told through multiple perspectives (all female), this is a near future dystopia with very probably legislation that outlaws abortion, IVF, and adoption outside of straight married couples for the entire country. The female characters are known first as these new archetypes - the Mender, the Wife, the Biographer, the Daughter, etc. As the story unfolds we learn their names and stories from their chapters but also the chapters of others, and you start to see how their lives and stories interrelate.
I had one question - the partner of The Mender, is he known as a different name to someone else? He was the only one I hadn't connected up. I thought maybe I missed something.
Bonus points, for me, for Oregonian setting, Oregonian author (teaches at Portland State!), mention of PCOS, and one point which was even more chilling because of recent legislation in my current state of South Carolina, which hasn't outlawed adopted by non married couples, exactly, but the governor signed an order giving preference to married couples, and not just married ones, but married CHRISTIAN ones.
Dystopia is now....
I had one question - the partner of The Mender, is he known as a different name to someone else? He was the only one I hadn't connected up. I thought maybe I missed something.
Bonus points, for me, for Oregonian setting, Oregonian author (teaches at Portland State!), mention of PCOS, and one point which was even more chilling because of recent legislation in my current state of South Carolina, which hasn't outlawed adopted by non married couples, exactly, but the governor signed an order giving preference to married couples, and not just married ones, but married CHRISTIAN ones.
Dystopia is now....
November 20, 2018
Sorry, SF fans, this one isn't SF no matter how it might be billed that way. There is ONE alteration to reality and it's only a legal one. Abortions are outlawed. The rest is, as they say, history.
Enter into a novel about vaginas. Names are missing because it's popular to write about real people as only their roles.
Other than that, it feels like popular fiction, complete with disgruntled housewives, teachers who dream of having children but are denied, little girls who get pregnant and must suffer all kinds of horrors in this realistic world of insanity. Just roll back the clock a little. Or roll it forward. Roe VS Wade is HISTORY.
All in all, this novel *is* a what-if. It says nothing more than what I already believe, that women should not have to suffer, either economically or legally or socially, for the desire NOT to be saddled with a real and true burden. Not unless they're able and willing to take care of said burden.
And yet, what makes this novel popular is the fear that this little freedom will soon go away. In real life.
Horrible? Yes.
It's a subject that should not be shot, burned, ostracized, locked-away, or otherwise relegated to dirty street corners with coat hangers.
As a novel, however, it's okay. I might have liked it better if the more fascinating Biographer had an actual name. A lot of the details of the characters' lives were more interesting than their Roles would have them be. Is it on purpose? Undoubtedly. Did it work the way it should have? Not sure, but I'm leaning toward no.
It wasn't bad tho and I support the attempt.
Enter into a novel about vaginas. Names are missing because it's popular to write about real people as only their roles.
Other than that, it feels like popular fiction, complete with disgruntled housewives, teachers who dream of having children but are denied, little girls who get pregnant and must suffer all kinds of horrors in this realistic world of insanity. Just roll back the clock a little. Or roll it forward. Roe VS Wade is HISTORY.
All in all, this novel *is* a what-if. It says nothing more than what I already believe, that women should not have to suffer, either economically or legally or socially, for the desire NOT to be saddled with a real and true burden. Not unless they're able and willing to take care of said burden.
And yet, what makes this novel popular is the fear that this little freedom will soon go away. In real life.
Horrible? Yes.
It's a subject that should not be shot, burned, ostracized, locked-away, or otherwise relegated to dirty street corners with coat hangers.
As a novel, however, it's okay. I might have liked it better if the more fascinating Biographer had an actual name. A lot of the details of the characters' lives were more interesting than their Roles would have them be. Is it on purpose? Undoubtedly. Did it work the way it should have? Not sure, but I'm leaning toward no.
It wasn't bad tho and I support the attempt.
June 20, 2018
My thoughts on this are all jumbled up; I thought I would adore this and it is not a bad book by any means but it took me three months to finish this. I could just not get on board and I am not quite sure where my problems lie.
I love the plausibility of the world Leni Zumas has created here, it feels organic in a way that is scary and frustrating. Set in the not so distant future, reproductive rights have been severely limited: abortion is illegal in all and every circumstances (and in fact considered murder), in-vitro fertilization is unavailable, and soon adoption will only be possible for straight, married couples. Told from five different perspectives, Zumas shows the far-reaching consequences these changes to the law might have. Her world is plausible and aggrevating and often feels contemporary rather than speculative.
My main problem were the characters that often felt underdeveloped and not particularly fleshed-out. As they are often refered to by a descriptor (“the mother�, “the daughter� etc.) this was probably on purpose: these things that are happening do not happen to these women because of who they are but rather because of the way the social structure is set up. Intellectually, I get, emotionally, I did not care for their stories at all. There was a large chunk in the middle that did not work for me because of that distance. I do think that the storylines converged nicely in the end and that the character development if slight did work.
I enjoyed Leni Zumas� particular prose a whole lot and thought it added a nice layer of urgency and intimacy to an otherwise distant book. Her sentences are choppy but have a nice rhythm to them.
I received an arc of this book courtesy of NetGalley and HarperCollins UK in exchange for an honest review.
You can find this review and other thoughts on books on
I love the plausibility of the world Leni Zumas has created here, it feels organic in a way that is scary and frustrating. Set in the not so distant future, reproductive rights have been severely limited: abortion is illegal in all and every circumstances (and in fact considered murder), in-vitro fertilization is unavailable, and soon adoption will only be possible for straight, married couples. Told from five different perspectives, Zumas shows the far-reaching consequences these changes to the law might have. Her world is plausible and aggrevating and often feels contemporary rather than speculative.
My main problem were the characters that often felt underdeveloped and not particularly fleshed-out. As they are often refered to by a descriptor (“the mother�, “the daughter� etc.) this was probably on purpose: these things that are happening do not happen to these women because of who they are but rather because of the way the social structure is set up. Intellectually, I get, emotionally, I did not care for their stories at all. There was a large chunk in the middle that did not work for me because of that distance. I do think that the storylines converged nicely in the end and that the character development if slight did work.
I enjoyed Leni Zumas� particular prose a whole lot and thought it added a nice layer of urgency and intimacy to an otherwise distant book. Her sentences are choppy but have a nice rhythm to them.
I received an arc of this book courtesy of NetGalley and HarperCollins UK in exchange for an honest review.
You can find this review and other thoughts on books on
March 26, 2018
Well, I am going to admit I was a little skeptical of this book going in. Any book that draws comparisons to The Handmaids Tale is bound to come off second best in my experience. Last years "female dystopia" de jour The Power just didn't do it for me, so I was a little worried for Red Clocks.
However, I needn't have worried, Red Clocks is a beautifully written, gloriously weird and at times funny character study of five women. This world that Zumas has created feels very much like the world we live in. In fact it was a good few chapters before I recognised anything obviously speculative.
Even a cursory look through the news reveals Zumas didn't have to imagine too hard to find the antecedents to the Personhood Amendment and The Every Child Needs Two campaign that form the background politics to this novel. This book is so good precisely because it is not dismissible science fiction but rather feels more like a cautionary tale of what could happen tomorrow if we don't keep a close watch on things. Just read this recent chilling opinion piece from the to see just how close to reality this novel actually is.
All this makes this book sound like a polemic on reproductive rights but the experience of reading it is much more nuanced character study. It presents the interlinked stories of five very different woman in a world where reproductive choice is restricted. The politics of this is deftly referenced almost as an aside. It is never suggested that one particular path is easier or of less consequence than another but the book does an exceptional job of highlighting the importance of individual choice.
You may not like all these woman or agree with their actions but it is hard not to love how Zumas wrote these characters. She has a fantastic way with description and voice, its at once humorous and deeply despairing. The writing is quite lyrical and the way the story is told may not be to everyone's taste, it is quite an eclectic mixture of reproductive biology, herbal remedies, polar exploration, boiled puffin recipes and one too many pubic hairs.
However, I thought it was just perfect and I spent two days with it unable to put it down.
Don't dismiss this as a dystopia, this is a book that is begging you to pay attention to what is going on in the here and now.
However, I needn't have worried, Red Clocks is a beautifully written, gloriously weird and at times funny character study of five women. This world that Zumas has created feels very much like the world we live in. In fact it was a good few chapters before I recognised anything obviously speculative.
Even a cursory look through the news reveals Zumas didn't have to imagine too hard to find the antecedents to the Personhood Amendment and The Every Child Needs Two campaign that form the background politics to this novel. This book is so good precisely because it is not dismissible science fiction but rather feels more like a cautionary tale of what could happen tomorrow if we don't keep a close watch on things. Just read this recent chilling opinion piece from the to see just how close to reality this novel actually is.
All this makes this book sound like a polemic on reproductive rights but the experience of reading it is much more nuanced character study. It presents the interlinked stories of five very different woman in a world where reproductive choice is restricted. The politics of this is deftly referenced almost as an aside. It is never suggested that one particular path is easier or of less consequence than another but the book does an exceptional job of highlighting the importance of individual choice.
You may not like all these woman or agree with their actions but it is hard not to love how Zumas wrote these characters. She has a fantastic way with description and voice, its at once humorous and deeply despairing. The writing is quite lyrical and the way the story is told may not be to everyone's taste, it is quite an eclectic mixture of reproductive biology, herbal remedies, polar exploration, boiled puffin recipes and one too many pubic hairs.
However, I thought it was just perfect and I spent two days with it unable to put it down.
Don't dismiss this as a dystopia, this is a book that is begging you to pay attention to what is going on in the here and now.
January 16, 2018
RED CLOCKS by Leni Zumas - Thank you so much to Little, Brown and Company for providing my free copy - all opinions are my own.
This novel is outstanding! I have not read another book like this. Yes, it’s feminist—in the sense that these women rule their own lives within the confines of the law. Yes, it’s dystopian—in the sense that these same laws are not in effect in the United States today. But, this story was the most realistic dystopian novel I’ve ever read.
Red Clocks takes place in the near future in the fictional town of Newville, near Salem Oregon. It is written from four main female perspectives: the biographer, the mender, the daughter, and the wife. The Personhood Amendment had just been passed, granting constitutional rights to a fertilized egg at the time of conception. Because of this law, abortions and in vitro fertilization have been banned as the fetus cannot give consent to such procedures. Also, a new law will soon go into effect called Every Child Needs Two, which only allows couples to adopt. As you read, you observe how these women deal with these laws as they apply to their own lives.
I enjoyed reading about each of these women as they led their very different lives. The biographer is one of my favorite characters; she is witty but at the same time very sad and I was able to empathize with her greatly. The mender (aka “The Witch�), was another favorite of mine, as she uses her herbal remedies to help women that sought medical help. The daughter, a teenager in high school, and the wife, who has two children but feels trapped in an unhappy marriage, were very fleshed out and added to the overall story.
I enjoyed the novel’s unique structure including the interludes of the biographer’s novel. The character development is excellent. The more I read, slowly but surely, the more I became invested in each character. I love that you start out just knowing these women’s roles in society rather than their names, but over the course of the story, you learn who they are and how they connect to one another.
To me, Red Clocks has a very Atwoodian feel only because it seems so well researched. I got the same eerie feeling when I read books like The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake: the feeling, if you really thought about it, that THIS COULD HAPPEN. Zumas definitely did her homework.
I really appreciated the complexity of the story; it not only focused on women’s rights but also motherhood, identity, and fertility issues. This novel is brilliant and extremely relevant in today’s world. I recommend this book to everyone but especially people who love dystopia, feminist reads, or who are just curious how the world would look if women lost their reproductive rights. You NEED to read this!
This novel is outstanding! I have not read another book like this. Yes, it’s feminist—in the sense that these women rule their own lives within the confines of the law. Yes, it’s dystopian—in the sense that these same laws are not in effect in the United States today. But, this story was the most realistic dystopian novel I’ve ever read.
Red Clocks takes place in the near future in the fictional town of Newville, near Salem Oregon. It is written from four main female perspectives: the biographer, the mender, the daughter, and the wife. The Personhood Amendment had just been passed, granting constitutional rights to a fertilized egg at the time of conception. Because of this law, abortions and in vitro fertilization have been banned as the fetus cannot give consent to such procedures. Also, a new law will soon go into effect called Every Child Needs Two, which only allows couples to adopt. As you read, you observe how these women deal with these laws as they apply to their own lives.
I enjoyed reading about each of these women as they led their very different lives. The biographer is one of my favorite characters; she is witty but at the same time very sad and I was able to empathize with her greatly. The mender (aka “The Witch�), was another favorite of mine, as she uses her herbal remedies to help women that sought medical help. The daughter, a teenager in high school, and the wife, who has two children but feels trapped in an unhappy marriage, were very fleshed out and added to the overall story.
I enjoyed the novel’s unique structure including the interludes of the biographer’s novel. The character development is excellent. The more I read, slowly but surely, the more I became invested in each character. I love that you start out just knowing these women’s roles in society rather than their names, but over the course of the story, you learn who they are and how they connect to one another.
To me, Red Clocks has a very Atwoodian feel only because it seems so well researched. I got the same eerie feeling when I read books like The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake: the feeling, if you really thought about it, that THIS COULD HAPPEN. Zumas definitely did her homework.
I really appreciated the complexity of the story; it not only focused on women’s rights but also motherhood, identity, and fertility issues. This novel is brilliant and extremely relevant in today’s world. I recommend this book to everyone but especially people who love dystopia, feminist reads, or who are just curious how the world would look if women lost their reproductive rights. You NEED to read this!
January 30, 2019
Zumas creates women with lovely endearing individuality and humaneness. I was concerned for their welfare and wanted them to turn out to have happy lives, almost to the degree that I feel about characters in Kent Haruf's novels. On the downside the characters's story arcs were not particularly interesting and their reactions to menstrual-related events never strayed much beyond the obvious, with the exception of the mender, whom I adored. Too bad her dramatic arc was wrapped up in a B movie plot.
The person who designed this cover should get a medal. Brava--I'm assuming you are a woman--forgive me if you're not, and my admiration for you has grown all the more strong--and shame on Hachette for not giving you a named credit on the jacket you designed.
The person who designed this cover should get a medal. Brava--I'm assuming you are a woman--forgive me if you're not, and my admiration for you has grown all the more strong--and shame on Hachette for not giving you a named credit on the jacket you designed.
January 22, 2018
How weird to be reading this book on my least-favorite commuting day of the year, when the annual March for Life is held in DC and I have to resist the urge to yell at people to get the eff out of my way on the Metro.
This is getting billed as a dystopian novel to cash in on Handmaid hysteria, but it's really not that much of a stretch from our current environment, given that abortion access is being so severely curtailed in many states. The leaders of Zumas' world, though, have taken it a step farther and banned in-vitro fertilization and are about to ban adoption by single parents. These three laws complicate the lives of four women in rural Oregon: Ro, an unmarried biographer and high school teacher desperate to have a child despite her potential infertility; Mattie, a teenager who is stunned and frightened to realize that she is pregnant; Susan, the unhappy housewife and mother of two ill-behaved young children; and Gin, a natural healer who is looked at with skepticism by the townspeople who think of her as a witch.
For the most part, this is a thoughtful novel that examines the concept of motherhood and women's identity from several perspectives. I really liked the central conceit, especially that Zumas added in several unexpected wrinkles, such as in-vitro and adoption bans, and that she was willing to explore these wrinkles from so many angles. While the idea that abortion has been outlawed is dystopian might elicit a knee-jerk negative response from readers on the more conservative side of the spectrum, there are moments in this book that acknowledge the other side, particularly when it comes to Ro's fertility struggles: she, for example, angrily ruminates on how unfair it is that Mattie has this thing she wants (a pregnancy) and is willing to destroy it.
There's a lot going on in this book, though, and not all of it works. While I liked the detached, disjointed writing style that Zumas employs, referring to her female protagonists by their title -- The Biographer, The Wife, The Daughter, and The Mender -- to highlight how difficult it can be for women to define themselves as individuals, I do think Zumas could have leaned into this theme a little harder and plumbed the women's stories with a little more depth. There are so many books that do lean in that way, including The Handmaid's Tale, of course, but also, more recently, Forty Rooms and Hausfrau. In comparison, Red Clocks feels more about playing with experimental writing styles as opposed to trying to make a strong statement on the topics. So I enjoyed this book, but it didn't leave me feeling overly engaged or enthusiastic about it. 3.5 stars.
This is getting billed as a dystopian novel to cash in on Handmaid hysteria, but it's really not that much of a stretch from our current environment, given that abortion access is being so severely curtailed in many states. The leaders of Zumas' world, though, have taken it a step farther and banned in-vitro fertilization and are about to ban adoption by single parents. These three laws complicate the lives of four women in rural Oregon: Ro, an unmarried biographer and high school teacher desperate to have a child despite her potential infertility; Mattie, a teenager who is stunned and frightened to realize that she is pregnant; Susan, the unhappy housewife and mother of two ill-behaved young children; and Gin, a natural healer who is looked at with skepticism by the townspeople who think of her as a witch.
For the most part, this is a thoughtful novel that examines the concept of motherhood and women's identity from several perspectives. I really liked the central conceit, especially that Zumas added in several unexpected wrinkles, such as in-vitro and adoption bans, and that she was willing to explore these wrinkles from so many angles. While the idea that abortion has been outlawed is dystopian might elicit a knee-jerk negative response from readers on the more conservative side of the spectrum, there are moments in this book that acknowledge the other side, particularly when it comes to Ro's fertility struggles: she, for example, angrily ruminates on how unfair it is that Mattie has this thing she wants (a pregnancy) and is willing to destroy it.
There's a lot going on in this book, though, and not all of it works. While I liked the detached, disjointed writing style that Zumas employs, referring to her female protagonists by their title -- The Biographer, The Wife, The Daughter, and The Mender -- to highlight how difficult it can be for women to define themselves as individuals, I do think Zumas could have leaned into this theme a little harder and plumbed the women's stories with a little more depth. There are so many books that do lean in that way, including The Handmaid's Tale, of course, but also, more recently, Forty Rooms and Hausfrau. In comparison, Red Clocks feels more about playing with experimental writing styles as opposed to trying to make a strong statement on the topics. So I enjoyed this book, but it didn't leave me feeling overly engaged or enthusiastic about it. 3.5 stars.
April 3, 2018
It took me a bit to figure out how this book worked. But once I did, I liked it. It's a story about a VERY possible near future where single women can't adopt, or get in vitro, and no one can get safe abortions because they're illegal. So basically, it's the US pre-1973. And that is frightening.
January 13, 2018
Red Clocks is a quietly dystopian novel. There has been no war, no plague, no machine gunning down of the senate. Instead, the world Zumas creates is eerily similar to our own. All that has changed is a pro-life government signed a bill into law while the majority of the country sat at home and thought it could never happen. Sound familiar? Uncomfortable yet? Red Clocks feels eerily possible and that possibility is the novel’s strength. Speculative fiction is best when you believe we could take one wrong turn and end up there.
One of the first things you notice while reading Red Clocks is the writing. It is disjointed, beautiful, and lyrical. Leni Zumas’s words don’t flow they way you expect them to and, though slightly uncomfortable at first, the end result it wonderful and surprising. I underlined countless sentences and dogeared dozens of pages because I was so thrilled by her unpredictable words.
“She doesn't want to skip the Math Academy.
(She kicks Nouri’s gothsickle ass at calculus.)
Or to push it out.
She doesn't want to wonder; and she would.
The kid too�Why wasn’t I kept?
Was his mother too young? Too old? Too hot? Too cold?
She doesn’t want him wondering, or herself wondering.
Are you mine?
And she doesn’t want to worry she’ll be found.
Selfish.
But she has a self. Why not use it?�
Dystopian and speculative fiction aspects aside, Red Clocks is primarily a story about the lives of four interweaving women who want four very different things. The Biographer desperately wants to have a child. The Wife wants out of her failing marriage. The Daughter wants to go to the Math Academy. The Mender wants to live a quiet life alone with her animals.
I LOVED all of these women so much. They are strong and flawed, generous and selfish, loving and spiteful. Despite the labels given to them, they are each fully fleshed out with deep inner lives. You will find no caricatures here.
As a woman who has always been content on her own, I identified so strongly with the Biographer and the Mender. Both are characters who enjoy being alone and are not looking for a relationship to complete their lives. It was so empowering! I cannot think of another time in literature where women aren’t at least peripherally looking for a relationship. In Red Clocks, the women state firmly that they are fine on their own, thank you very much. In fact, there is no romantic storyline in this novel at all. That’s pretty revolutionary on its own.
Red Clocks is a beautiful novel about what it’s like to be a woman in a world that takes away your choice. It is a novel about women finding their voices and finding their purpose. I loved every single page. Highly recommend!!!
One of the first things you notice while reading Red Clocks is the writing. It is disjointed, beautiful, and lyrical. Leni Zumas’s words don’t flow they way you expect them to and, though slightly uncomfortable at first, the end result it wonderful and surprising. I underlined countless sentences and dogeared dozens of pages because I was so thrilled by her unpredictable words.
“She doesn't want to skip the Math Academy.
(She kicks Nouri’s gothsickle ass at calculus.)
Or to push it out.
She doesn't want to wonder; and she would.
The kid too�Why wasn’t I kept?
Was his mother too young? Too old? Too hot? Too cold?
She doesn’t want him wondering, or herself wondering.
Are you mine?
And she doesn’t want to worry she’ll be found.
Selfish.
But she has a self. Why not use it?�
Dystopian and speculative fiction aspects aside, Red Clocks is primarily a story about the lives of four interweaving women who want four very different things. The Biographer desperately wants to have a child. The Wife wants out of her failing marriage. The Daughter wants to go to the Math Academy. The Mender wants to live a quiet life alone with her animals.
I LOVED all of these women so much. They are strong and flawed, generous and selfish, loving and spiteful. Despite the labels given to them, they are each fully fleshed out with deep inner lives. You will find no caricatures here.
As a woman who has always been content on her own, I identified so strongly with the Biographer and the Mender. Both are characters who enjoy being alone and are not looking for a relationship to complete their lives. It was so empowering! I cannot think of another time in literature where women aren’t at least peripherally looking for a relationship. In Red Clocks, the women state firmly that they are fine on their own, thank you very much. In fact, there is no romantic storyline in this novel at all. That’s pretty revolutionary on its own.
Red Clocks is a beautiful novel about what it’s like to be a woman in a world that takes away your choice. It is a novel about women finding their voices and finding their purpose. I loved every single page. Highly recommend!!!
August 6, 2018
“Red Clocks� by Leni Zumas
I had heard about this novel as part of the speculation leading up to the 2018 Women’s Prize � and was surprised not to see it longlisted. My perception was that it was a dystopian and political novel � very much in the spirit of (or ).
In fact the book surprised me in a number of ways:
Firstly in how little a “stretch� there was to the alternative world portrayed;
Secondly by how autobiographical it was;
Thirdly in being at heart more about relationships between women explored within a patriarchal/misogynistic world rather than just exploring the structure of that patriarchy;
Fourthly by the wide (perhaps too wide) range of influences and ideas the author brings to the book.
The political set up of the book is established early on.
In addition Canada has agreed to the Pink Wall � and actively tries to seek out and detain Americans seeking abortions (including carrying out pregnancy tests on unaccompanied minors)
As the author has remarked “there’s not much in “Red Clocks� that hasn’t been suggested by an actual lawmaker�. Further the world presented is not that extreme � contraception is freely available and legal, one of the characters manages to source a reasonably safe if entirely illegal abortion, another character is allowed to actively seek fertility treatment despite being single. But I would argue that in many ways the relatively small step from our world to this world if anything makes the book ultimately more powerful than a fully-fledged dystopia.
The bulk of the book is set in a small Oregon coastal town and told from the alternating third party viewpoint of four characters � who in their own chapters are given a label but who are named in the other characters� chapters.
Ro/The Biographer is in her early 40s � an unmarried high school teacher she is unsuccessfully trying artificial insemination, knowing her adoption and fostering chances are disappearing.
Mattie/The Daughter � herself adopted � is a promising student at the school but her future is threatened by an unplanned pregnancy � something particularly haunting as her previous best friend is in a correctional facility having self-administered an abortion. Susan � is a mother of two, once a promising legal student she gave up her career for marriage and children, her under-motivated husband uses his only skills (natural French speaker) to scrape a salary as a French teacher while the two live rent free in Susan’s childhood home. Gin/The Mender � lives on the edge of town, living naturally and providing herbal remedies to women which she barters for supplies � her recent relationship with the headmaster’s wife has ended with the latter having a severe fall � and she faces trial for drugging the wife.
This device of labelling the characters can feel both artificial and also in some ways counter productive and anti-feminist � implying that the characters are one-dimensional and largely defined by their family status.
So I found it very useful to read in detail what the author said about this aspect of the book, which also brings out the autobiographical elements of the book:
Another key aspect to the book is the relationships between the characters:
And this comes out strongly in the book � for example Ro and Susan have a mutually suspicious and judgemental relationship; Ro struggles when Mattie asks for her assistance, desperately wanting to suggest that she pays Mattie to deliver the baby for her to secretly adopt despite Mattie’s clear wish to terminate the pregnancy; Gin’s relationship to Mattie is even more nuanced.
As the author has also remarked in interviews “There’s so much � cultural, familial or actual policy regulation around women’s bodies� and the book brings this out � for example much of the pressure Ro faces is from her father and from her friends.
The book starts (and is threaded) with excerpts from a work-in-progress biography of a (fictional) 19th century Icelandic female polar explorer and scientist Eivør Mínervudottír who has to fight against a hostile environment � both literally and figuratively (she can only get her ideas publicised by giving them to a male Scottish scientist and adopts his identity to get a place on the expedition; at one stage her revolutionary observations on ice packs are dismissed out of hand by her captain who claims she will soon be spotting ice fairies; next her male companions believe narwahles are unicorns).
Ro is also of course the writer of these biographical inserts which: function as a story in their own right (see comments above); serve as an overarching metaphor (women trying so survive in an icy and hostile environment); and often have small, immediate parallels with the preceding or following chapters (as an example Gin’s male lawyer studied with Gin � and may even have had a relationship with her, just like the speculation around Eivør and the Scottish scientist � and his breakthrough in the trail is suggested to him by Gin but not credited to her).
Other areas of personal interest that the author explores in the text (not always successfully) include:
- Virginia Woolf’s “The Lighthouse� which provides the epigraph, the character’s (and town’s) names and inspired both the the seaside setting and the multi-voice approach
- Whales � multiple times in the biography, some fruitless classroom discussion of Moby Dick and in an otherwise out of place incident when some whales wash up on shore
- Witches � Gin’s trial is a modern version of a Salem Witch trials. Apparently at one stage pre-editing the link was going to be much stronger (with actual transcripts used) but even still I found some elements a little unbelievably given the near alternative future in which the world was set � for example a large part of the hostility to Gin seems to stem from her being blamed for the reappearance of some harmful-to-fishing seaweed.
- Dirt and decay: Susan is obsessed with a plastic bag she sees which she thinks might be a dying animal; when Susan has her final argument with her husband she falls to the floor and eats dirt; her husband is obsessed with (but not prepared to contribute to) cleaning hairs from the toilet
- Disintegration and Reintegration: much of Gin’s medicine is harvested from the unburied body of the woman who raised her; when Eivør dies a passage of Ro’s biography speculates on how her body re-entered the food chain.
- Quite subtlety race � as seen through the background relationship between Mattie and her best friend and the fate of the latter
Overall this was a much more complex book than I had expected � at times I think trying to do too much, but certainly impressive for its ambition.
Useful interview links (from which I have freely borrowed)
I had heard about this novel as part of the speculation leading up to the 2018 Women’s Prize � and was surprised not to see it longlisted. My perception was that it was a dystopian and political novel � very much in the spirit of (or ).
In fact the book surprised me in a number of ways:
Firstly in how little a “stretch� there was to the alternative world portrayed;
Secondly by how autobiographical it was;
Thirdly in being at heart more about relationships between women explored within a patriarchal/misogynistic world rather than just exploring the structure of that patriarchy;
Fourthly by the wide (perhaps too wide) range of influences and ideas the author brings to the book.
The political set up of the book is established early on.
Two years ago the US Congress ratified the Personhood Amendment, which gives the constitutional right to life, liberty and property to a fertilised egg at the moment of conception. Abortion is now legal in all fifty states. Abortion is now illegal in all fifty states. Abortion providers can be charged with second degree murder, abortion seekers with conspiracy to commit murder. In vitro fertilisation is …federally banned �.
In less than three months .. [the] Every Child Needs Two [law] takes affect .. Unmarried persons will be legally prohibited from adopting children.
In addition Canada has agreed to the Pink Wall � and actively tries to seek out and detain Americans seeking abortions (including carrying out pregnancy tests on unaccompanied minors)
As the author has remarked “there’s not much in “Red Clocks� that hasn’t been suggested by an actual lawmaker�. Further the world presented is not that extreme � contraception is freely available and legal, one of the characters manages to source a reasonably safe if entirely illegal abortion, another character is allowed to actively seek fertility treatment despite being single. But I would argue that in many ways the relatively small step from our world to this world if anything makes the book ultimately more powerful than a fully-fledged dystopia.
The bulk of the book is set in a small Oregon coastal town and told from the alternating third party viewpoint of four characters � who in their own chapters are given a label but who are named in the other characters� chapters.
Ro/The Biographer is in her early 40s � an unmarried high school teacher she is unsuccessfully trying artificial insemination, knowing her adoption and fostering chances are disappearing.
Mattie/The Daughter � herself adopted � is a promising student at the school but her future is threatened by an unplanned pregnancy � something particularly haunting as her previous best friend is in a correctional facility having self-administered an abortion. Susan � is a mother of two, once a promising legal student she gave up her career for marriage and children, her under-motivated husband uses his only skills (natural French speaker) to scrape a salary as a French teacher while the two live rent free in Susan’s childhood home. Gin/The Mender � lives on the edge of town, living naturally and providing herbal remedies to women which she barters for supplies � her recent relationship with the headmaster’s wife has ended with the latter having a severe fall � and she faces trial for drugging the wife.
This device of labelling the characters can feel both artificial and also in some ways counter productive and anti-feminist � implying that the characters are one-dimensional and largely defined by their family status.
So I found it very useful to read in detail what the author said about this aspect of the book, which also brings out the autobiographical elements of the book:
“I was thinking a lot about the narratives women inherit about motherhood, marriage, professional ambition, purpose in life—and how these narratives are not great for many of us. So I imagined five very different female characters and gave them different labels to highlight some of the roles women perform �. All of them face longstanding questions about women’s bodies—who decides what your body is used for �. What happens if you end up not taking the motherhood path, or you choose not to have a romantic partner—what label is assigned to you then? By interlacing their stories, I was hoping to suggest how insufficient any one label ends up being �.. Red Clocks is rooted in my experience of trying to have a baby on my own, via artificial insemination �. I thought I would get pregnant easily, but I didn’t. I started to question why I wanted so badly to have a baby in the first place. Several years later, I had a son with my partner. �. I remain ambivalent about the ways in which the mother role is framed as an imperative (moral, emotional, social, existential) at the expense of other roles and identities. This ambivalence, I think, is part of the reason I gave the five characters such different relationships to motherhood.�
Another key aspect to the book is the relationships between the characters:
“I definitely did not start with political themes in mind. What I started out with were characters and particularly the idea of female friendship and all the ways it can be burdened by either envy or competition or difference or just having different experiences and not being able to share them�
“I think for my entire writing life and into the future I will be writing about female friendships and female relationships. That's one of my core interests. That bond between women is so layered, so thorny, and can be really supportive and really competitive at the same time.�
And this comes out strongly in the book � for example Ro and Susan have a mutually suspicious and judgemental relationship; Ro struggles when Mattie asks for her assistance, desperately wanting to suggest that she pays Mattie to deliver the baby for her to secretly adopt despite Mattie’s clear wish to terminate the pregnancy; Gin’s relationship to Mattie is even more nuanced.
As the author has also remarked in interviews “There’s so much � cultural, familial or actual policy regulation around women’s bodies� and the book brings this out � for example much of the pressure Ro faces is from her father and from her friends.
The book starts (and is threaded) with excerpts from a work-in-progress biography of a (fictional) 19th century Icelandic female polar explorer and scientist Eivør Mínervudottír who has to fight against a hostile environment � both literally and figuratively (she can only get her ideas publicised by giving them to a male Scottish scientist and adopts his identity to get a place on the expedition; at one stage her revolutionary observations on ice packs are dismissed out of hand by her captain who claims she will soon be spotting ice fairies; next her male companions believe narwahles are unicorns).
Ro is also of course the writer of these biographical inserts which: function as a story in their own right (see comments above); serve as an overarching metaphor (women trying so survive in an icy and hostile environment); and often have small, immediate parallels with the preceding or following chapters (as an example Gin’s male lawyer studied with Gin � and may even have had a relationship with her, just like the speculation around Eivør and the Scottish scientist � and his breakthrough in the trail is suggested to him by Gin but not credited to her).
Other areas of personal interest that the author explores in the text (not always successfully) include:
- Virginia Woolf’s “The Lighthouse� which provides the epigraph, the character’s (and town’s) names and inspired both the the seaside setting and the multi-voice approach
- Whales � multiple times in the biography, some fruitless classroom discussion of Moby Dick and in an otherwise out of place incident when some whales wash up on shore
- Witches � Gin’s trial is a modern version of a Salem Witch trials. Apparently at one stage pre-editing the link was going to be much stronger (with actual transcripts used) but even still I found some elements a little unbelievably given the near alternative future in which the world was set � for example a large part of the hostility to Gin seems to stem from her being blamed for the reappearance of some harmful-to-fishing seaweed.
- Dirt and decay: Susan is obsessed with a plastic bag she sees which she thinks might be a dying animal; when Susan has her final argument with her husband she falls to the floor and eats dirt; her husband is obsessed with (but not prepared to contribute to) cleaning hairs from the toilet
- Disintegration and Reintegration: much of Gin’s medicine is harvested from the unburied body of the woman who raised her; when Eivør dies a passage of Ro’s biography speculates on how her body re-entered the food chain.
- Quite subtlety race � as seen through the background relationship between Mattie and her best friend and the fate of the latter
Overall this was a much more complex book than I had expected � at times I think trying to do too much, but certainly impressive for its ambition.
Useful interview links (from which I have freely borrowed)
June 6, 2019
It's a not entirely unlikely future scenario - hell we're already well underway with the cagily named "Heartbeat" rulings being pushed in several US states. In this, the darkest of timelines, abortion has become illegal. Those that provide abortion services can be charged with second degree murder and those seeking abortion can face significant jail time. In vitro fertilization is banned and legislation is being put into place demanding every child should have two parents.
In this environment we have the biographer/teacher Ro desperately trying to conceive before the laws are put into place making it impossible. Susan the housewife and mother feeling trapped, tied to a blithely oblivious jerk of a husband. Mattie the high schooler who finds herself pregnant and seeing her future dreams slipping away.
I loved the interactions between the characters. How these characters see each other through their own wants and desires. How the childless Ro quietly seethes at the mother in Susan and yearns at the possibility in Mattie. Wrestling between her own self-interest and what Mattie needs. How Gin, the healer in the woods is understood by the women in the community. Those moments really shine for me.
But as a whole it just didn't work for me. Maybe I'm just Pete, the oblivious dude friend to the equally crass Didier. Typical guy, doesn't get it. It just seems to deal with the aftermath of these ruling and duh, it kinda sucks for women. It puts their lives in danger, wrongfully incarcerates them and subtly pits them against each other. Preaching to the converted here. I wanted a villain and not just ignorant men. I wanted to read about how this affects the Christian right that has been fighting for this, how lawmakers subvert the rules when it's beneficial to them, how you justify denying abortion when it's rape or incest. Maybe it just wan't dystopian enough and instead focused on the hand wringing of suburban white women when the current conversation IRL happening right now feels way more dire.
In this environment we have the biographer/teacher Ro desperately trying to conceive before the laws are put into place making it impossible. Susan the housewife and mother feeling trapped, tied to a blithely oblivious jerk of a husband. Mattie the high schooler who finds herself pregnant and seeing her future dreams slipping away.
I loved the interactions between the characters. How these characters see each other through their own wants and desires. How the childless Ro quietly seethes at the mother in Susan and yearns at the possibility in Mattie. Wrestling between her own self-interest and what Mattie needs. How Gin, the healer in the woods is understood by the women in the community. Those moments really shine for me.
But as a whole it just didn't work for me. Maybe I'm just Pete, the oblivious dude friend to the equally crass Didier. Typical guy, doesn't get it. It just seems to deal with the aftermath of these ruling and duh, it kinda sucks for women. It puts their lives in danger, wrongfully incarcerates them and subtly pits them against each other. Preaching to the converted here. I wanted a villain and not just ignorant men. I wanted to read about how this affects the Christian right that has been fighting for this, how lawmakers subvert the rules when it's beneficial to them, how you justify denying abortion when it's rape or incest. Maybe it just wan't dystopian enough and instead focused on the hand wringing of suburban white women when the current conversation IRL happening right now feels way more dire.
April 5, 2018
This is a story of 5 woman there day to day life, their dreams and goals, there desires and struggles. The chapter headings are The Daughter, The Mender, The Wife, The Biographer, The explorer, It shows what they are seems more important that who they are. You only find out their names by other characters in the book using them.
It's a book about what makes a family and it is saying you need two adults to have a child. It also talks about the rights of the ity bity baby in its first few weeks of being conceived and the new law that protects that baby. I am a Christian and am for life so I agreed with the law in this story. But when you take something away that is in the 'light' and is safe for the woman, it then becomes done in the dark and with that comes danger. You can't stop people from having sex but maybe there should be more emphasize on protection during the act. But none of us are perfect and we need to love and forgive ourselves and others.
I like the way that the story ties each woman into the story and the conections they have with each other. It shows the choices we make may mean the laying down of other choices- Babies verses having a career, being tied down to living in freedom, and accepting thoes choices or changing direction.
I liked each of these woman following along in their lives and seeing their joys and heartaches their fears and sorrows and their struggles and imperfections. It's who we are, we are woman and we are important, we need to encourage each other and support each other through the ups and downs in our lives.
We are woman hear us roar.
It's a book about what makes a family and it is saying you need two adults to have a child. It also talks about the rights of the ity bity baby in its first few weeks of being conceived and the new law that protects that baby. I am a Christian and am for life so I agreed with the law in this story. But when you take something away that is in the 'light' and is safe for the woman, it then becomes done in the dark and with that comes danger. You can't stop people from having sex but maybe there should be more emphasize on protection during the act. But none of us are perfect and we need to love and forgive ourselves and others.
I like the way that the story ties each woman into the story and the conections they have with each other. It shows the choices we make may mean the laying down of other choices- Babies verses having a career, being tied down to living in freedom, and accepting thoes choices or changing direction.
I liked each of these woman following along in their lives and seeing their joys and heartaches their fears and sorrows and their struggles and imperfections. It's who we are, we are woman and we are important, we need to encourage each other and support each other through the ups and downs in our lives.
We are woman hear us roar.
February 21, 2018
Damn, I really wanted to love this book. The premise is obviously timely and appropriate, and the book had a lot of hype. But I just didn't care for it.
The unnamed character thing seemed unnecessary. It reminded me of Annihilation - four women characters, all unnamed (I can hear the conversation now: "Hey! Instead of a BIOLOGIST, let's have your main character be a BIOGRAPHER!") and I really hope having a bunch of unnamed women characters is not going to become a trend in near-future dystopian lit. And actually, the characters did have names, but only sometimes were they referred to by them - which caused me confusion when suddenly someone was "Susan" and I was like "Susan? Who?" There must be some symbolism here that I'm missing as to why they were referred to by name at some parts but not others, but I can't figure it out.
Honestly, the book is more conceptual than story-driven, and I think that focus made me less interested in what was going on. It's great that we are getting literature in response to the government's attacks on women; hopefully something else will come along with fleshed out characters who I can actually care about.
The unnamed character thing seemed unnecessary. It reminded me of Annihilation - four women characters, all unnamed (I can hear the conversation now: "Hey! Instead of a BIOLOGIST, let's have your main character be a BIOGRAPHER!") and I really hope having a bunch of unnamed women characters is not going to become a trend in near-future dystopian lit. And actually, the characters did have names, but only sometimes were they referred to by them - which caused me confusion when suddenly someone was "Susan" and I was like "Susan? Who?" There must be some symbolism here that I'm missing as to why they were referred to by name at some parts but not others, but I can't figure it out.
Honestly, the book is more conceptual than story-driven, and I think that focus made me less interested in what was going on. It's great that we are getting literature in response to the government's attacks on women; hopefully something else will come along with fleshed out characters who I can actually care about.
Read
January 1, 2018The Handmaid's Tale for Our Generation
By Judge Cristina Arreola
Don’t let the pink and red cover fool you. Red Clocks is no romance or “beach read.� Instead, it is a frightening dystopian novel about what happens when politicians successfully manage to push back on women’s reproductive rights little by little, until none are left at all.
In Lena Zumas’s near-future America, The Personhood Amendment has made both abortion and in-vitro fertilization illegal, and the Every Child Needs Two Act is about to make it impossible for unmarried people to adopt children. The story is set in a small town in Oregon, where four women cope with the weight of these laws and the equally-crushing magnitude of societal expectations. There’s Ro, an unmarried writer and teacher desperate to have children but who cannot get pregnant. There’s Mattie, an adopted teenager who has accidentally become pregnant and is desperate for an abortion. Susan is a mother of two children who fantasizes about leaving her husband. And finally, Gin is a young “witch� who offers herbal cures to women in need of gynecological help, including abortions. Their four lives converge and intertwine in strange ways, especially when a heated trial breaks out in their town, forcing them all to grapple with this new world order.
The true power of Red Clocks lies in the distance the author creates between the women and the reader, in how she intentionally refrains from portraying their emotional states. But then, we don’t need the author to explain how they’re are feeling, do we? The things they feel—the desire to choose or postpone motherhood, the desire to seek fulfillment beyond motherhood, and the fear of realizing that these decisions are no longer yours—are endemic to all women. The takeaway from Zumas’s book is clear: There is no perfect way to be a woman, but it should every woman’s right to choose her own path.
As I flipped the final pages of this novel, I began to contemplate how I would describe it in this review—dystopian? That is the obvious choice, and it fits. But to me, it reads a bit like horror.
Read more at
By Judge Cristina Arreola
Don’t let the pink and red cover fool you. Red Clocks is no romance or “beach read.� Instead, it is a frightening dystopian novel about what happens when politicians successfully manage to push back on women’s reproductive rights little by little, until none are left at all.
In Lena Zumas’s near-future America, The Personhood Amendment has made both abortion and in-vitro fertilization illegal, and the Every Child Needs Two Act is about to make it impossible for unmarried people to adopt children. The story is set in a small town in Oregon, where four women cope with the weight of these laws and the equally-crushing magnitude of societal expectations. There’s Ro, an unmarried writer and teacher desperate to have children but who cannot get pregnant. There’s Mattie, an adopted teenager who has accidentally become pregnant and is desperate for an abortion. Susan is a mother of two children who fantasizes about leaving her husband. And finally, Gin is a young “witch� who offers herbal cures to women in need of gynecological help, including abortions. Their four lives converge and intertwine in strange ways, especially when a heated trial breaks out in their town, forcing them all to grapple with this new world order.
The true power of Red Clocks lies in the distance the author creates between the women and the reader, in how she intentionally refrains from portraying their emotional states. But then, we don’t need the author to explain how they’re are feeling, do we? The things they feel—the desire to choose or postpone motherhood, the desire to seek fulfillment beyond motherhood, and the fear of realizing that these decisions are no longer yours—are endemic to all women. The takeaway from Zumas’s book is clear: There is no perfect way to be a woman, but it should every woman’s right to choose her own path.
As I flipped the final pages of this novel, I began to contemplate how I would describe it in this review—dystopian? That is the obvious choice, and it fits. But to me, it reads a bit like horror.
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July 20, 2019
Red Clocks was an interesting read for me. It is all about women, and the kind of pressures that society puts on these women, in order for them to decide how to and whether to have children. For me, having a child is a very private experience for the individual involved, and no Government or person in society should have any say in how that person decides to go about it.
This is a dystopian, set in The United States, and in the story, abortion is classed as murder, and miscarriage is manslaughter. Crazy, right? Also, in order to adopt a child, you must be part of a married couple. This part had me rolling my eyes a bit, as I am an adoptee myself, and my thoughts on this are complicated.
I liked the characters. The majority of these women were interesting, and it held my curiosity. However, I do think the setting of the story could have been better. For instance, it could have been set in the present day. There are so many people that are physically unable to have children naturally and who are also turned away from adopting any children. And, there is still a terrible stigma present, if a woman of a certain religion, or social group, wishes to get an abortion.
While this book certainly held my attention, it barely scratched the surface with me. I was waiting for something to happen, for the women to fight back, instead of just accepting someone else taking over the rights of their bodies. I must say though, I LOVE that cover.
This is a dystopian, set in The United States, and in the story, abortion is classed as murder, and miscarriage is manslaughter. Crazy, right? Also, in order to adopt a child, you must be part of a married couple. This part had me rolling my eyes a bit, as I am an adoptee myself, and my thoughts on this are complicated.
I liked the characters. The majority of these women were interesting, and it held my curiosity. However, I do think the setting of the story could have been better. For instance, it could have been set in the present day. There are so many people that are physically unable to have children naturally and who are also turned away from adopting any children. And, there is still a terrible stigma present, if a woman of a certain religion, or social group, wishes to get an abortion.
While this book certainly held my attention, it barely scratched the surface with me. I was waiting for something to happen, for the women to fight back, instead of just accepting someone else taking over the rights of their bodies. I must say though, I LOVE that cover.
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March 2, 2018A note: I received my M.A. from Portland State (where Leni teaches) and while I do not know her personally, many of my M.F.A. colleagues speak highly of her.
Red Clocks is a dystopian novel, though I could see this future happening with a few wrong turns. Similar to , women find themselves in an inequitable society where the Personhood Amendment has granted rights to embryos, IVF is illegal, and of course, abortion is universally banned.
This novel features an experimental writing style, which may not be for everyone. I enjoyed the writing style once I got used to it after a few chapters. The chapters rotate between The Biographer (Ro), The Wife (Susan), The Daughter (Mattie), and the Mender; all characters are referred to by their first names in conversation. This approach reminds me of favorite dystopian reads--I find it in line with the genre.
Red Clocks is a dystopian novel, though I could see this future happening with a few wrong turns. Similar to , women find themselves in an inequitable society where the Personhood Amendment has granted rights to embryos, IVF is illegal, and of course, abortion is universally banned.
This novel features an experimental writing style, which may not be for everyone. I enjoyed the writing style once I got used to it after a few chapters. The chapters rotate between The Biographer (Ro), The Wife (Susan), The Daughter (Mattie), and the Mender; all characters are referred to by their first names in conversation. This approach reminds me of favorite dystopian reads--I find it in line with the genre.
June 26, 2018
When I recently heard that Leni Zumas� new novel “Red Clocks� was partly inspired by Virginia Woolf’s “The Waves� I felt I had to read it. I love Woolf’s poetically-charged novel so much and it’s lived with me for so many years I feel like it’s a part of my body and soul. The plot of Zumas� novel doesn’t directly relate to Woolf’s writing but it gives several nods to it and pays tribute to her predecessor so part of the great pleasure of reading this book was knowing I was in the company of a fellow Woolf lover. The epigraph of this novel is a line from Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse�. Set on the western US coast it portrays the interweaving lives of four different women in a time when abortion is outlawed in America and legislation is coming into place that requires any child who is adopted to have two parents. Sadly, it’s easy to imagine such regressive laws being put into effect with the current administration. Chapters are headed by a part that these four different women play in the story: the biographer, the mender, the daughter and the wife. So the novel is partly about the way that women can become defined by their roles in life and how society brackets women within a specific function. Of course, their characters are really much more complex than these parts and the story dramatically shows the way women can work together under a political regime that seeks to suppress and control them.
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February 7, 2018
A few months ago, I read about this upcoming title and had to have it immediately. Luckily through NetGalley I received an ARC. This book is definitely worth the hype and I hope its popularity continues to grow exponentially. Due to the subject matter, Red Clocks is reminiscent of The Handmaid's Tale and other dystopian feminist works; male-supremacist legislation, reversal of Roe v. Wade, illegal abortions, etc. Yet, Zumas succeeds at writing an original, thought-provoking story that deeply resonates with our current state of affairs. Red Clocks will stay with me for a long time. I personally loved the biographer's frame story about the Faroese arctic explorer Eivør Mínervudottír and felt that it added an interesting layer of perspective to the novel. The windows into her life really piqued my interest, and I'm having a hard time finding any information about her, which is ironic (if she was in fact a real historical figure).
*Mínervudottír wasn't based on an actual person. This is a really interesting BookPage interview with Zumas about Red Clocks
*Mínervudottír wasn't based on an actual person. This is a really interesting BookPage interview with Zumas about Red Clocks
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