The Resisters by Gish Jen
Fiction
Read this if you: Like your dystopian fiction served up with a healthy dose of humor, think that a good game of baseball solves everything (can you say underground baseball league?), and believe anything can represent the Resistance, even knitting.
What it’s about: Imagine a future America—AutoAmerica—flooded due to climate change and watched over by an artificial intelligence known as “Aunt Nettie.” Society is divided into the “Netted”—those who live on dry land, and have work and college opportunities and privileges, and the Surplus—mostly people of color, or who aren’t Christian, or who are “odd-bodied,” eking out a living on soggy ground or on water. The story focuses on a Surplus family—former teacher Grant, activist Eleanor, and their baby daughter Gwen, who displays amazing baseball pitching ability from her crib. What gifts or consequences will Gwen’s golden arm bring to her family in an unequal society? Sensitive and thought-provoking yet charming.
What critics say: “The magic of Gish Jen’s latest novel, The Resisters, is that, amid a dark and cautionary tale, there’s a story also filled with electricity and humor.... Rippling with action, suspense and lovingly detailed baseball play-by-plays, there’s a sense throughout the book of both celebration and danger” (Diana Abu-Jaber, The Washington Post); “Jen has too much humor and heart as a writer to do a full-out futuristic nightmare. Instead, the feel of The Resisters is more like that noir sequence embedded within It's a Wonderful Life....” (Maureen Corrigan, NPR).