Dystopian Baseball | The Resisters by Gish Jen

Title: The Resisters
Author: Gish Jen
Published: February 4, 2020
Genre(s): Literary Fiction, Science Fiction
Page Count: 320
Rating:

Summary from Goodreads:

The time: a not-so-distant future. The place: AutoAmerica. The land: half under water. The Internet—the new face of government—is "Aunt Nettie": a mix of artificial intelligence, surveillance technology, and pesky maxims. The people have been divided, and no one is happy. The angel-fair "Netted" still have jobs and literally occupy the high ground, while the mostly coppertoned "Surplus" live on swampland if they're lucky, on the water if they're not.

The story: To a Surplus couple—he was a professor, she's still a lawyer—is born a Blasian girl with a golden arm. At two, Gwen is hurling her stuffed animals from the crib; by ten she can hit whatever target she likes with a baseball; her teens find her playing happily in an underground Surplus league. When AutoAmerica re-enters the Olympics—with a special eye on beating ChinRussia—Gwen attracts interest. Soon she's at Net U, falling in love with her coach and considering "crossing over," even as her mother is challenging the AutoAmerican Way with lawsuits that will prove very dangerous.

The Resisters is one-part a wholesome story about family and America’s National Pastime, and one-part an interesting exploration of a tech-driven, post-climate-crisis regime that hearkens back to The Circle (although Gish Jen is far less sanctimoniously preachy than Dave Eggers). For myself, I was skeptical of this novel when I started, but I found this strange mix of robotic oppression, teenage antics, and sports jargon to be wholly endearing. This isn’t a post-apocalyptic novel that’s concerned with either the violent overthrow of the ruling class or with a gruesome litany of hopeless atrocities. Rather, it’s a book about people surviving in a bad situation, but who also have the time and ability to fight against injustice, one legal case at a time—or, if you’re eighteen and not Totally Uncool like your parents, you’ll play baseball instead.

I enjoyed The Resisters in no small amount because of how unexpected it was. I was expecting dark and dim, but instead I was met with characters who persevere: who have family dinners, who make love, who plant tomatoes and knit sweaters and read Melville together even as the sea-levels rise. Because of the way family bonds are so central to the narrative, even the worst parts of Gish Jen’s dystopian vision feel softer, somehow. (Although I would never call this book “light-hearted.”)

Another unexpected aspect was the voice. Ostensibly, this book is about Gwen, a baseball prodigy from a shantytown who receives a once-in-a-lifetime chance to attend university alongside the children of the prosperous upper castes. The entire novel hinges on Gwen, on her abilities, her choices, and her coming of age. Yet Gwen is not the narrator. Instead, it’s Gwen’s father who tells this story, and every scene is filtered through his eyes. I though this was unique and, probably, pretty smart—who could better explain the impact of youthful choices on the bigger picture than a parent. If the author had chosen to tell the story from Gwen’s mouth, a “realistic” portrayal would have included a lot of angst about Gwen’s complicated frenemy situation and her tumultuous first love. These are worthy subjects of a book, just not the book The Resisters is trying to be. (As it is, Gwen’s father is pretty well aware of both the friend situation and his daughter’s love life.) I liked the distance from our “protagonist,” for the same reason many probably like the way the titular Gatsby is not Fitzgerald’s narrator.

I also liked that Gish Jen doesn’t attempt to over-explain things. The precise situation that led AI to wrest control from the hands of human politicians isn’t as important—although I dearly wanted to know more. The Resisters isn’t concerned with science or setting the stage, but I didn’t feel that the book was lacking. A paragraphs-long explanation on the whys and hows wouldn’t have added anything to the story.

The more important, more compelling thing here was the supremely satisfying “underdog” story as Gwen rose to international prominence as a pitcher: the United States of AutoAmerica’s “secret weapon” at the Olympic games. I love that this book captures the exact feelings that make sports movies so feel-good and just plain enjoyable, then transplanted that formula into an dystopian future. This merger of two separate genres is a study in contrasts, but also a way to show that even after the end of the world, good things can still happen to good people.