Excerpts-

• From the cover ***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof*** Copyright © 2018 Christina Dalcher
  
  

  CHAPTER ONE

  If anyone told me I could bring down the president, and the Pure Movement, and that incompetent little shit Morgan LeBron in a week’s time, I wouldn’t believe them. But I wouldn’t argue. I wouldn’t say a thing.

  I’ve become a woman of few words.

  Tonight at supper, before I speak my final syllables of the day, Patrick reaches over and taps the silver-toned device around my left wrist. It’s a light touch, as if he were sharing the pain, or perhaps reminding me to stay quiet until the counter resets itself at midnight. This magic will happen while I sleep, and I’ll begin Tuesday with a virgin slate. My daughter, Sonia’s, counter will do the same.

  My boys do not wear word counters.

  Over dinner, they are all engaged in the usual chatter about school.

  Sonia also attends school, although she never wastes words discussing her days. At supper, between bites of a simple stew I made from memory, Patrick questions her about her progress in home economics, physical fitness, and a new course titled Simple Accounting for Households. Is she obeying the teachers? Will she earn high marks this term? He knows exactly the type of questions to ask: closed-ended, requiring only a nod or a shake of the head.

  I watch and listen, my nails carving half-moons into the flesh of my palms. Sonia nods when appropriate, wrinkles her nose when my young twins, not understanding the importance of yes/no interrogatives and finite answer sets, ask their sister to tell them what the teachers are like, how the classes are, which subject she likes best. So many open-ended questions. I refuse to think they do understand, that they’re baiting her, teasing out words. But at eleven, they’re old enough to know. And they’ve seen what happens when we overuse words.

  Sonia’s lips quiver as she looks from one brother to another, the pink of her tongue trembling on the edge of her teeth or the plump of her lower lip, a body part with a mind of its own, undulating. Steven, my eldest, extends a hand and touches his forefinger to her mouth.

  I could tell them what they want to know: All men at the front of the classrooms now. One-way system. Teachers talk. Students listen. It would cost me sixteen words.

  I have five left.

  “How is her vocabulary?” Patrick asks, knocking his chin my way. He rephrases. “Is she learning?”

  I shrug. By six, Sonia should have an army of ten thousand lexemes, individual troops that assemble and come to attention and obey the orders her small, still-plastic brain issues. Should have, if the three R’s weren’t now reduced to one: simple arithmetic. After all, one day my daughter will be expected to shop and run a household, to be a devoted and dutiful wife. You need math for that, but not spelling. Not literature. Not a voice.

  “You’re the cognitive linguist,” Patrick says, gathering empty plates, urging Steven to do the same.

  “Was.”

  “Are.”

  In spite of my year of practice, the extra words leak out before I can stop them: “No. I’m. Not.”

  Patrick watches the counter tick off another three entries. I feel the pressure of each on my pulse like an ominous drum. “That’s enough, Jean,” he says.

  The boys exchange worried looks, the kind of worry that comes from knowing what occurs if the counter surpasses those three digits. One, zero, zero. This is when I say my last Monday word. To my daughter. The...

About the Author-

• Christina Dalcher earned her doctorate in theoretical linguistics from Georgetown University. She specializes in the phonetics of sound change in Italian and British dialects and has taught at several universities.
  
  Her short stories and flash fiction appear in more than one hundred journals worldwide. Recognition includes first place for the Bath Flash Award, nominations for the Pushcart Prize, and multiple other awards. She lives in Norfolk, Virginia, with her husband.

Reviews-

• 

  June 11, 2018
  In her provocative debut, linguist Dalcher imagines a near future in which speech and language—or the withholding thereof—are instruments of control. The election of a conservative president with a charismatic (and psychotic) religious advisor is merely the final straw in a decades-long trend toward repression and authoritarianism. For years, cognitive linguist Jean McClellan, a well-educated white woman, chose to immerse herself in academia rather than become politically active, even as signs of authoritarianism were proliferating. Now, however, a year after the election, women in the United States have been limited to speaking no more than 100 words per day or face painful consequences. When the President’s brother suffers an accident that affects his brain’s speech centers, Jean might be able to leverage her expertise to restore her status. Dalcher’s narrative raises questions about the links between language and authority; most chilling is the specter of young girls being starved of language and, consequently, the capacity to think critically. The novel’s muddled climax and implausible denouement fail to live up to its intriguing premise. Nevertheless, Dalcher’s novel carries an undeniably powerful message.

• Narrator Julia Whelan brings this realistic, thought-provoking debut to life with heart. She is the voice of Dr. Jean McClellan, once a renowned scientist, now a mostly mute, angry wife and mother who is looking for a way to reclaim her voice and personhood. Whelan expresses a range of emotions: regret for past disengagement, fear as she contemplates her daughter's life without a voice, and determination to fight back in a nation that silences and sidelines half its population. Whelan gives husband Patrick a meek voice peppered with endearments as he encourages Jean to "go along to get along." Son Steven expresses the arrogance of youth as he spouts the propaganda that is passing for education at school. A frighteningly believable story that ends with hope. N.E.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

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