The Resisters: A novel

By Gish Jen

The moving story of one family struggling to maintain their humanity in circumstances that threaten their every value—from the highly acclaimed, award-winning author of Thank You, Mr. Nixon. • “Intricately imagined … [It] grows directly out of the soil of our current political moment.” —The New York Times Book Review

The time: not so long from now. The place: AutoAmerica, a country surveilled by one “Aunt Nettie,” a Big Brother that is part artificial intelligence, part internet, and oddly human—even funny. The people: divided. The “angelfair” Netted have jobs and, what with the country half under water, literally occupy the high ground. The Surplus live on swampland if they’re lucky, on water if they’re not.
 
The story: To a Surplus couple—he once a professor, she still a lawyer—is born a girl, Gwen, with a golden arm. Her teens find her happily playing in an underground baseball league, but when AutoAmerica faces ChinRussia in the Olympics, Gwen finds herself in dangerous territory, playing ball with the Netted even as her mother battles this apartheid-like society in court.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Feb 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984898227

Reviews for The Resisters

[brangwinn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The interesting thing about speculative fiction is how it makes us look at our own lives. In AutoAmerica, humans do nothing. Artificial Intelligence handles everything, no thinking required. But in the elite group, the “Netted” there are resisters. And the family in the story resist what is being taken from them. Gwen, the daughter of Grant and Eleanor, is a baseball whiz. She’s so good that she’s pressured to undergo genetic engineering. It bothered me as I read the book how easily people were willing to let go of their rights. It’s a very thoughtful book for these political times, and the message is clear, THINK FOR YOURSELF.

[jillrhudy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In Gish Jen’s explosive new speculative fiction novel, “The Resisters,” underclass parents risk everything in a stifling technocracy just so that their kids can play baseball.Grant and Eleanor Cannon-Chastenet, married ex-professor and human rights lawyer, are “Surplus”—their jobs have supposedly been rendered unnecessary in AutoAmerica by an all-powerful Internet, which they call “Aunt Nettie.” They are also persons of color, or “coppertoned”—Blasians in a society where being white, or “angelfair,” is everything, and can blonde hair and blue eyes can be bioengineered if you’re rich enough in LifePoints—a sort of all-encompassing credit score based on your algorithmic data.Heroic Eleanor has been arrested and tortured for fighting in the sluggish and rigged courts for basic freedoms, all of which have been stripped from the Surplus in an effort to keep them under control and in their own geographic areas (which are flooded or on the water due to climate change). Grant, the narrator of the novel, tinkers in the basement to try to block spy signals, disrupt his smarthouse’s ever-listening ears, and hide from swarms of drones. His skills get the ultimate test when his daughter, Gwen, turns out to be an amazing pitcher and the family forms an Underground Baseball League (freedom of assembly is forbidden to the Surplus).Readers shouldn’t expect the Resisters in this book to be synonymous with the Resistance. The book is on a different historical timeline altogether. Political and social strata in the AutoAmerican Apartheid have been reshuffled, except that skin color is still a status symbol. There are plenty of well-meaning liberals on the privileged side, which is called the “Netted” because they all have jobs in technology. For them, the Autonet is helpful, not threatening. The Surplus receive a Basic Income and their only job is to consume goods to keep the economy going—what are they complaining about? If they have secret police (“Enforcers”) it’s their own fault for being so hard to control. There is no point on wasting advanced education on the Surplus either. But AutoAmerica wants to get the Olympics going again, and so they need athletes from that inferior gene pool—and will use invasive surveillance technology to detect who they are, and where they are. No one knows just how much Aunt Nettie knows about them, or how she finds out. Sound familiar?Jen’s vivid imagination and writing finesse makes this novel endlessly entertaining, with an “aha” of disturbing recognition on every page. The loving, rebellious Cannon-Chastenet family will melt your heart. Parents will recognize the dilemma of wanting to protect your child versus the value of leaving her free to choose, even if she chooses against your most cherished values—because freedom to choose your own destiny is itself one of your most cherished values.I received an advanced readers copy of this book from the publisher and was encouraged to submit an honest review.

[eas7788 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Stressful to read because her dystopia seems so possible. It gained momentum as it went so that I was reading the end in great suspense. At times the pov felt limiting and occasionally the world-building it felt a bit forced but for the most part I got thoroughly swept up in the way Jen creates her scenes and characters, and the end was strong, especially for me as a parent -- and as a potential member of this future world she creates.

[socprof9740 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a decent (not extraordinary) read except for three things: (1) I don't care for baseball, (2) this read more like a YA novel than I expected / than advertised. (3) The whole "like my mom used to say" trope followed by some trite, inane, and useless saying got old very quickly.
It's too bad though because the premise was smart: when AI takes over, a new form of segregation is created between the Netted (the still-necessary humans) and the Surplus (whose jobs no longer exist and are deemed unretrainable). To keep the social order in place, the Surplus are drugged and winnowed into mediocrity, constantly under the surveillance of the Autonet (nicknamed Aunt Nettie by the Surplus) while being told that they "always have a choice". AI totalitarianism in the context of climate changed (more hinted at than fully explored) should have made for a better story.

[arosoff-513117 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I don't really know how I felt about this one. There's good material in it, but I'm not sure it all works as a whole.

Part of the problem is the setup. She's loaded everything in to her dystopia: a suffocating state, overwhelming surveillance, class divisions, climate change, and racism. Of course, these things interlink, but it's a lot. Gwen comes from a Surplus family, one of the lower class, though her parents are a former professor (now Unretrainable) and her mother is a lawyer fighting the system. Turns out she's a great baseball pitcher, and the state can use her.

The ideas are good, but the book gets bogged down in jargon--lots of shortenings and abbreviations--and world building. The plot and characters don't get free of it, or their predetermined moral roles.

[banjo123 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don't think that this is Jen's best work, but it was a fun read, combining a dystopian future with baseball. The dystopia was based on things happening right now (technological surveillance, racism, climate change, class divide), so it was eerily scary. Society is divided into two groups, the netted and the surplus. Both groups mostly ruled by an artificial intelligence called Aunt Nettie.The book seemingly focuses on a girl, Gwen; "with a golden arm" who is born to a surplus couple, Eleanor and Grant. Eleanor and Grant are resisters, Eleanor as a lawyer, fighting Aunt Nettie in court; and Grant more in a background technological level, finding ways to get around Aunt Nettie's surveillance. Baseball has been banned, but it's obviously what Gwen needs, so they form an underground league. Some people have complained about too much baseball in the book. I didn't mind that, but I did wish there was less pitching and more fielding. I do question the choice of baseball as a resistance sport. In reality, baseball is pretty aligned with conservative values in the US; basketball would have made more sense.At any rate, the book is creative and fun. I like Jen's writing, but the story is narrated by Grant, and his voice to grate at times.

[booklove2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Baseball.  This really isn't my book.  Baseball bores me.  But dystopia?  That's more my jam.  Gwen is a gifted baseball player from birth -- her parents resisters within this crazy swampy future of the Netted and the Surplus.   The parents run an underground baseball league when they aren't suing their overlords.  But the government wants Gwen to play for their team.  Some of this "dystopia" is already here in our world, but given awkward new names.   I was about to bail on this book filled with too much baseball for me, but then the writer mentions a character named Hector Quesadilla that I could only recognize from a T. C. Boyle story, one of my favorite writers, so I committed to the remainder of the book.  I kind of saw where it was going.   I did appreciate that this book seems to combine 'Bartleby, the Scrivener', '1984' and Kafka which is something I thought only my own brain did.  But there are many influences here and sometimes too obvious and spelled out.  I loved Gwen's family's resistance to their world though.  But so. much. baseball. why.

[kayanelson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

2021 TOB--This isn't a book I would have picked up on my own but I liked it. The underlying message of the haves and have nots was well done (surplus vs netted) was well done. And then the story of Gwen's pitching was a good vehicle for moving along the message.

[quondame · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I just wasn't in the mood for dystopian baseball. The tone of the book requires something more troubling than the little guys triumph.

[beth.clarke · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The best thing about this book is the cover. Seriously, it's awesome. As for the book, I like baseball, but this had too much for me. Secondly, I want to read the story from Gwen's POV, not her dad's. It distanced the reader from the protagonist. I did like the dystopian aspect of a society gone wrong and the people that "resisted" the problems.

[muddyboy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a really creative futuristic novel based of a "far out" subject. In the future baseball has been banned and has to be played underground. As a toddler the main character (Gwen) can even then throw things with speed and accuracy. Seizing on this unique skill her parents encourage her to develop this ability and get her into baseball. Eventually she joins as underground baseball league to showcase her talent. She struggles with friends, relatives, coaches and even if she wants to continue in the sport. It is very different and I liked it.

[gwendydd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is set in a no-too-distant future, where the world has been split into two classes: the "Netted" and the "Surplus". In a world where production is so efficient that there is a surplus of goods but not enough jobs to go around, the Netted are people with jobs who have to work but live lives of luxury, while the Surplus live in subsidized housing, do not have jobs, and must consume the crap created by the Netted to keep the economy going. The book tells the story of one Surplus girl who has amazing talent as a baseball pitcher. Her parents create an underground baseball league, and when the Olympics are revived and the US has to put together a baseball team, she is recruited to join Netted society and must make choices about whether to turn her back on the Surplus.This book has a lot to say about systemic racism and economic oppression, and about the choices people make between group loyalty and individual achievement, and about the invasive nature of surveillance technology. It's also a good baseball story.I found it engaging, and I thought the themes were handled well without getting heavy-handed, but somehow the dystopian setting never quite congealed for me. I think the book might have been trying to do too much at once, and because a lot of time had to be spent on world-building, some of the bigger themes got watered down.