A Believable Dystopia of the Near Future

A review of Red Clocks by Leni Zumas (2018: Little, Brown, and Company)

What is a woman for in a near future without reproductive freedom? What is her purpose? If you read Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale you'll imagine women are for child-bearing and sexual satisfaction and not much else. If you read Elgin's Native Tongue you'll add to that specific intellectual gifts and not much else.

Here, though, we are given a much more likely and much less extreme sort of dystopian (very near) future scenario: Abortion has been outlawed, single women are not allowed to use in vitro fertilization or adopt children. Every child needs two parents. These are not hideously shocking developments, just steps down a path that many people have wanted, probably. So this is speculative fiction of the most believable sort.

In this alternate scenario, the author visits five women seeking their purpose in their intersecting lives. A single school teacher yearning for a child. An unhappily married stay at home mother who desires time alone. An odd and mystical homeopathic woman trying to help others and wrestling with her own past. A female arctic explorer who desired exploration and research. A bright adopted pregnant teenager with few options. Each brings her own perspective,  experience, and worries to the search for purpose in this slightly off-kilter world.

The alternate view points are woven together nicely. The secondary characters bring more nuance and depth to each woman's choices or lack there of.  The story is well written and thought provoking. Given recent political events, this book is very timely for its early 2018 publication.

Who will not like this book? Those who are not interested in women have choices, in reproductive freedom, or even women's freedom to choose the course of their lives.