Time Sep

102 TIME September 3–10 2018

FICTION

The danger of being the favorite

By Lucy Feldman

OF 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

Favoritesunderstands 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 and

FICTION

Silence of

the women

In 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 Zorthian

author 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