Media Corner

We welcome your reviews of books and films that • appeared within the past five years • do not advocate for or against a political party or politician • do address issues of concern to the League, and • intrigued you enough that you want to share them. Please submit your review to  communications [at] lwv-pa.org.

Although we have no review this month, for those who have not read it I recommend Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). It has been on my mind lately—and, most likely, on many of yours as well. Herewith an excerpt from Chapter 29. Offred, the protagonist, is recalling her experience of the rise of Gilead, the patriarchal theocracy that replaces the United States in Atwood’s dystopian vision. And while it seems the future may have arrived, for Black women in this country it is a tale that resonates with past enslavement and current, ongoing, structural racism, as this conversation from The Verge reminds us. —Chris Moose

Cover of the McClelland and Stewart first edition (1985)

All those women having jobs: hard to imagine, now, but thousands of them had jobs, millions. It was considered the normal thing. Now it’s like remembering the paper money, when they still had that.  .  .  . before everything went on the Compubank.

I guess that’s how they were able to do it, in the way they did, all at once, without anyone knowing beforehand. If there had still been portable money, it would have been more difficult.

It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time.

Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control. I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen?

That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on.  .  .  .

Things continued in that state of suspended animation for weeks, although some things did happen. Newspapers were censored and some were closed down, for security reasons they said. The roadblocks began to appear, and Identipasses. Everyone approved of that, since it was obvious you couldn’t be too careful. They said that new elections would be held, but that it would take some time to prepare for them. The thing to do, they said, was to continue on as usual.  .  .  .

The next morning, on my way to the library for the day, I stopped by the same store for another pack, because I’d run out. I was smoking more those days, it was the tension, you could feel it, like a subterranean hum, although things seemed so quiet.  .  .  . When I got to the corner store, the usual woman wasn’t there. Instead there was a man, a young man, he couldn’t have been more than twenty.

She sick? I said as I handed him my card.

Who? he said, aggressively I thought.

The woman who’s usually here, I said.

How would I know, he said. He was punching my number in, studying each number, punching with one finger.  .  .  .

Sorry, he said. This number’s not valid.

That’s ridiculous, I said. It must be, I’ve got thousands in my account. I just got the statement two days ago. Try it again.

It’s not valid, he repeated obstinately. See that red light? Means it’s not valid.  .  .  .

.  .  .  About two o’clock, after lunch, the director came into the discing room.

I have something to tell you, he said. He looked terrible; his hair was untidy, his eyes were pink and wobbling, as though he’d been drinking.  .  .  . I have to let you go, he said. It’s the law, I have to. I have to let you all go. He said this almost gently, as if we were wild animals, frogs he’d caught, in a jar, as if he were being humane.

We’re being fired? I said. I stood up. But why?

Not fired, he said. Let go. You can’t work here anymore, it’s the law.  .  .  . His voice was rising. I don’t want any trouble. If there’s trouble the books might be lost, things will get broken... He looked over his shoulder. They’re outside, he said, in my office. If you don’t go now they’ll come in themselves.  .  .  .