Red Clocks

In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo. In a small Oregon fishing town, five very different women navigate these new barriers alongside age-old questions surrounding motherhood, identity, and freedom. Red Clocks is at once a riveting drama and a shattering novel of ideas.

About the Author :
Leni Zumas is the author of the story collection Farewell Navigator and the novel The Listeners, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. She is an associate professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Portland State University.

Review :
"In an alarming peek into a dystopian future, a group of women navigates family and motherhood in an America that has outlawed abortion, in vitro fertilization, and adoption by single women. Each of the interwoven story lines is complex and heartbreaking in its own way, and overall it's a fascinating and unsettling exploration of the limits society can place on women's bodies."--Samantha Irby, Marie Claire "[Red Clocks] asks us to rethink what it really means to be female in a world that's written almost exclusively by men.... It is always nice when a novel forces me to revisit the foundation of my values. It's a little bit like rereading your favorite books, every decade or so.... For all its polemics, Red Clocks is actually most notable for the brio of its prose--its excellent sense of timing and cadence.... Time's a-ticking, this novel seems to say. Wake up."--Fiona Maazel, Bookforum "Masterful.... This horror-show of a world is explored through the stories of five women: a single teacher who's using her last opportunities to try to have her own child; a frustrated mother; an adopted teen who finds herself pregnant; an introverted healer who provides illegal services in the woods; and a 19th-century female polar explorer. Their stories are stunning."--Bookpage "Zumas's female characters are resourceful in the ways they resist. Although it has a serious message about how women are valued by society, Red Clocks is essentially a comedy, using humor to highlight the absurdities of authoritarianism and to celebrate self-determination.... Zumas [has] tapped into a newly resurgent literary tradition, one less prophetic than cautionary. They and many of their fellow writers of speculative fiction convey the need to be alert to injustice - and to be prepared to act against it."--High Country News "In language both poetic and political, Zumas presents characters who are strong and determined; each is an individual in her own right. Inevitably, there will be comparisons to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, but Zumas's work is not nearly as dystopic or futuristic, only serving to make it that much more believable. Highly recommended."--Library Journal (starred review) "Shattering.... With its strong point of view, the novel, in lesser hands, might have been reduced to agitprop, but Zumas has raised it, instead, to the level of literature, which readers will find deeply moving. The characters are beautifully realized, inviting empathy and understanding; the richly realized plot is compulsively readable, and the theme, with its echoes of Margaret Atwood, is never didactic but invites thought and discussion. The result is powerful and timely." --Booklist, starred review "Zumas manages a loose yet consistently engaging tone as she illustrates the extent to which the self-image of modern women is shaped by marriage, career, or motherhood. Dark humor further enhances the novel, making this a thoroughly affecting and memorable political parable." --Publishers Weekly "Zumas is a lyrical polymath of a writer: she loves wordplay anal foreign terms, she has an ear for dialogue, and she knows an impressive amount about herbal healing, Arctic exploration, and the part of the U.S. her story is set in...A good story energized by a timely premise." --Kirkus "Zumas' novel is a reckoning, a warning, and nothing short of a miracle. Don't miss it." --Ploughshares "Move over Atwood, Leni Zumas's Red Clocks is a gender roaring tour de force. The bodies of women in Red Clocks are each the site of resistance and revolution. I screamed out loud. I pumped my fist in the air. And I remembered how hope is forged from the ground up, through the bodies of women who won't be buried."--Lidia Yuknavitch "Hilarious, terrifying, and masterful--this pitch-perfect, timely novel reflects the horror and absurdity of our political landscape with a brilliance that ensures the book's timelessness. A poignant, wickedly sharp classic."--Alissa Nutting, author of Made for Love and Tampa "In bristling sentences, Zumas shows girls and women defying the excruciating restrictions imposed by both law and culture. Red Clocks is unabashedly political and fiercely humane."--Emily Fridlund, author of History of Wolves "Leni Zumas here proves she can do almost anything. Her tale feels part Melvillian, part Lydia Davis, part Octavia Butler-but really Zumas's vision is entirely her own. RED CLOCKS is funny, mordant, political, poetic, alarming, and inspiring-not to mention a way forward for fiction now."--Maggie Nelson "The women in this suspenseful book resist. They will not be circumscribed. The effect on the reader is cathartic."--Christine Schutt, author of Prosperous Friends Praise for Farewell Navigator Praise for The Listeners "Attention unrequited lovers, sisters of suicidal brothers, children of the legally blind: you are not alone. Leni Zumas understands your quiet agony and describes it with such wry, unflinching familiarity that even the gory details ring true. If darkness has ever been your friend, your story is in here."--Miranda July "I have never read stories like Leni Zumas's before and I can't get them out of my head. Her language is real sorcery-it dismantles the world you think you know and takes you to strange, fecund territories of the imagination. Sentence by sentence, Leni creates worlds so vivid and fever-bright that you forget you're reading words on a page and begin to see real plums, scars, black stars lashed to the bottom of canoes. Her characters are girls and boys in bad trouble, who feel as close to you and as far from you as the black sheep in your own family."--Karen Russell "Just listen to The Listeners. You'll hear the prose of one of our most exciting young writers. Zumas has already proven herself a remarkable maker of short stories. Now she has sustained and heightened the exhilaration of her writing in this striking novel."--Sam Lipsyte "Leni Zumas is a wonder, an alchemist, a witch. She brews a wild elixir in these stories, which take you where you never thought to go. Here are mothers infatuated with astronauts and dragons; here is a girl suckling elvers and owlets. Here is the body unspooling and nibbled at, the body undone and made fast again with the strength of the wish to be loved. Something's timely in these stories and hip, and yet they let us fall out of time. Fall into sorrow and be lifted again. What a blessing-to succumb to Zumas's power, to these gorgeous, beguiling songs."--Noy Holland "Leni Zumas's writing is fearless and swift, sassy and sensational."--Joy Williams One of Publishers Weekly's most anticipated titles of Fall 2017 "In bristling sentences that strike with stunning efficiency, Leni Zumas shows girls and women defying the excruciating restrictions imposed by both law and culture. This is not only timely but necessary fiction-uncannily prescient, unabashedly political, and fiercely humane. We so desperately need books like this."--Emily Fridlund, author of History of Wolves "Leni Zumas has written a prescient novel for these times. The women in this suspenseful book resist. They will not be circumscribed. The effect on the reader is cathartic."--Christine Schutt, author of Prosperous Friends "Strange and lovely and luminous. I loved Red Clocks with my whole heart."--Kelly Link, author of Magic for Beginners