Imagine a country where women and girls are permitted to speak only 100 words per day. (The average person says 16,000). Each spoken word is monitored via a government-issued electronic wrist counter that can administer a powerful shock after she reaches the daily allotment. In this world, women are banned from reading, using computers and learning information about their pregnancies. And the president is "always on television... always trumpeting a new plan to turn the country around, constantly telling us how much better off we are."
Welcome to debut novelist Christina Dalcher's terrifyingly brilliant near-future vision of the United States, one that has drawn comparisons with Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. In Vox, crooked politicians and a fanatical reverend are hell-bent on implementing the Pure Movement to silence strong independent woman like Dr. Jean McClellan. A neuroscientist and linguistics expert, Jean was on the verge of a medical breakthrough when the government mandated that every woman in the country leave her career to focus exclusively on raising children, keeping house and pleasing her husband. "Take the fifties," proclaims male bureaucrat Morgan LeBron. "Everything was fine. Everyone had a nice house and a car in the garage and food on the table. And things still ran smoothly! We didn't need women in the workforce."
When the president's brother and trusted adviser suffers the same neurological issue that Jean's scientific research team was studying, Jean receives a conflicting offer: work for a cure at the government's behest and her wrist counter--along with the one attached to her young daughter--will be removed, allowing both to speak freely. But once a cure is found, the wrist counters go back on.
Dalcher's characters are sypathetic and familiar; within the tension, readers will recognize themselves and others in this astonishing and frightening tale that reflects these uncertain times. While demonstrating the importance and power of using one's voice to speak out, Vox also sounds a warning about the consequences of political apathy and how collective inaction sometimes leads to detrimental change. --Melissa Firman, writer, editor and blogger