The moving story of one family struggling to maintain their humanity in circumstances that threaten their every valueâfrom the highly acclaimed, award-winning author of Thank You, Mr. Nixon. âĸ âIntricately imagined âĻ [It] grows directly out of the soil of our current political moment.â âThe New York Times Book Review
The time: not so long from now. The place: AutoAmerica, a country surveilled by one âAunt Nettie,â a Big Brother that is part artificial intelligence, part internet, and oddly humanâeven funny. The people: divided. The âangelfairâ Netted have jobs and, what with the country half under water, literally occupy the high ground. The Surplus live on swampland if theyâre lucky, on water if theyâre not.
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The story: To a Surplus coupleâhe once a professor, she still a lawyerâis 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.