Red Clocks

Product Information

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. It’s brilliant stuff, and the woods surrounding the witchy herbalist character are both glittering and informed. … To read this is to feel Leni Zumas knows everything.” The women in this suspenseful book resist.They will not be circumscribed. The effect on the reader is cathartic.”

THE BIOGRAPHER (Ro) - A forty-two-year-old high school teacher who desperately wants a child but her time is running out thinks to her own body and the government. 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.” The structure of the novel is basically perfect. The four women in the book all have lives centered around the central system of the female sex: its ability to bear children. It is the thing that has made patriarchal culture what it is, but it is also something that women have reclaimed and found joy and identity in as feminism has evolved. The way these women relate to pregnancy, birth, abortion, and childrearing stands in stark contrast to one another, but they all felt real and personally relevant. That Zumas allows them to be so different, to envy and dislike each other for their differences, and leaves it all without comment, without choosing any one character to be a moral highground or an arbiter of what is good, is another thing I liked about it so much. The book stays zoomed in on these women's lives, letting us see how they intertwine and react. It doesn't try to make a bigger statement, which is why it makes such an effective statement.

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. 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. I received an arc of this book courtesy of NetGalley and HarperCollins UK in exchange for an honest review. Enter into a novel about vaginas. Names are missing because it's popular to write about real people as only their roles. Opinion: Pregnant, and No Civil Rights (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 reach the intended goals?

Fourthly by the wide (perhaps too wide) range of influences and ideas the author brings to the book. 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: If she constructs a solid argument, he’ll be convinced.But then you’d actually have to go to counseling with him. 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 The Handmaid's Tale (or The Power). Other areas of personal interest that the author explores in the text (not always successfully) include:

And yet, what makes this novel popular is the fear that this little freedom will soon go away. In real life. 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) 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. 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.