#52: When She Woke

When She Woke, by Hillary Jordan (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2011)

 

Summary:

"From the author whose international bestseller, Mudbound, so hauntingly re-created America’s past comes a stunning creation of America in the near future, where faith, love, and sexuality have fallen prey to politics.

"Hannah Payne’s life has been devoted to church and family, but after her arrest, she awakens to a nightmare: she is lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown, and cameras are broadcasting her every move to millions at home, for home observing new Chromes — criminals whose skin color has been genetically altered to match the class of their crime — is a new and sinister form of entertainment. Hannah is a Red; her crime is murder. The victim, says the state of Texas, was her unborn child, and Hannah is determined to protect the identity of the father — a public figure with whom she’s shared a fierce and forbidden love.

"When She Woke is a stunning story about a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate an America of a not-too-distant future, where the line between church and state has been eradicated and convicted felons are released back into the population after being 'chromed.' In seeking a path to safety in an alien and hostile world, Hannah unknowingly embarks on a path of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she has held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes the personal."

Opening Lines: 
"When she woke, she was red. Not flushed, not sunburned, but the solid, declarative red of a stop sign."

My Take:
Spectacular, contemporary/ dystopian reimagining of The Scarlet Letter.