August 12, 2024
In this bracing speculative parable from Phillips (The Need), set in a near future devastated by climate change, a woman loses her job to the robots she helped build. The “hums,” as the AI bots are called, have become ubiquitous in every corner of society, rendering May Webb and her equally unemployable husband, Jem, increasingly desperate. As a result, May volunteers for a face-altering experiment, one that makes her identity undetectable to camera phones and security clearances. After the procedure, she takes her family to their unnamed city’s exotic botanical garden to spend three nights in a cottage, where lakes, forests, and streams still exist. She also forbids the children from using the devices they’ve grown reliant on, hoping for a brief respite from the selfies and hums flooding their feeds. During their stay, though, they’re surveilled by the hums, which capture May briefly losing track of the children in the park. When the family returns home, May discovers she has been canceled and may lose her children for good if the hums deem her guilty of negligence. This chilling vision of a near future, one where its dwellers “can’t avoid the void,” resonates unnervingly with the way things already are. Readers won’t be able to look away. Agent: Faye Bender, Book Group.