102 TIME September 3–10, 2018
FICTION
The danger of being the favorite
By Lucy FeldmanOF ALL THE LESSONS GLEANED FROM
#MeToo, one stands out as particularly
sinister: before things turn treacherous,
there’s a moment when predation can
feel dangerously like kindness. A young
person, not yet aware of his or her power,
is made to feel special—and then it’s
too late. Kate Walbert, author ofHis
Favorites,understands this.
Jo is 15 years old and new at
Hawthorne, the upper-crust boarding
school where she has transferred in
the wake of a personal tragedy. Her
best friend is gone. Her parents are
separating. Nothing is right. Along
comes Master Aikens, the magnetic
English teacher whose modern-lit class
is so popular, it requires an application.
Master spots Jo and invites her to apply.
She’s only a sophomore—too young—
but he makes exceptions, he says.
“This was the irst time a man had
spoken to me so directly,” Jo
thinks. “A man with... a way of
looking as if anything I said he
could not only understand but
somehow make more sense
of, righting all the shattered
objects back on the shelf.” This
is the moment, Jo explains,
that she’d like to latten into
a ilm strip and watch burn
to ashes—to erase from her
history. Because soon after,
there is the “academic”
meeting in Master’s
apartment. Next, the
handwritten note slipped
under her dorm-room
door. Then, the irst rape.
Walbert, a National
Book Award inalist andFICTIONSilence of
the womenIn Margaret Atwood’s 1985
novelThe Handmaid’s Tale,
the government strips
women of their resources.
In Christina Dalcher’s
Vox, a debut already
earning comparisons to
Atwood’s classic, a new
law strips women of their
right to self-expression.
If women speak more
than 100 words in a
day in this near future
America, they get shocked
via bracelets. When the
president recruits Jean,
a neurolinguist, to cure
a brain injury that left
his brother speechless,
she inds herself ighting
for her own voice, her
daughter’s voice and the
voices of all women.
Dalcher is a propulsive
storyteller, and she
knows how to keep the
reader outraged. But
she’s also herself a
linguist, so she’s careful
to explain the importance
of speech, both the
neurological mechanisms
behind its functioning
and how psychologically
terrifying it can be to lose
those faculties. That
powerlessness also works
as a metaphor for our time.
Dalcher’s heroine serves
as a cautionary tale to the
reader: after all, Jean was
warned of the coming ills
and did nothing.Vox is a
strong reminder to speak
up before it’s too late.
—Julia Zorthianauthor of the best-sellingA Short His-
tory of Women, sets Jo’s experiences with
Master in the late ’70s—the same decade
the author attended a prestigious board-
ing school. But Jo narrates from the pres-
ent, occasionally breaking the fourth
wall to speak directly toyou—the person
who has asked to hear this story.
And so we have. Over the past year,
we’ve heard an overwhelming number
of stories of sexual mistreatment.
Walbert’s is surely just one of many
novels that will come to grapple with
#MeToo, but it begs to be read. In just
149 eicient pages, she urges us to
remember that sharing—and listening—
are only the irst steps toward righting a
culture. For Jo, the past is a “cool, dark
pond,” and her feet will always be damp.
Adult Jo has learned, just as we have
learned, that she’s far from alone—and
there’s work to be done. TimeOf Books
▷
Walbert’s latest novel
wrestles with timely
#MeToo themes