“A 1984 for our times” - Newsday
One of Esquire’s Top 50 Sci-Fi Books of All Time
ABOUT THE BOOK
The time: not so long from now. The place: AutoAmerica. The land: half under water. The Internet: one part AI, one part surveillance technology, and oddly human–even funny. The people: Divided. The angel-fair “Netted” have jobs, and literally occupy the high ground. The “Surplus” live on swampland if they’re lucky, on water if they’re not. The story: To a Surplus couple 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. Her teens find her happily playing in an underground baseball league.
When AutoAmerica rejoins the Olympics, though–with a special eye on beating ChinRussia–Gwen attracts interest. Soon she finds herself playing ball for the Netted even as her lawyer mother challenges the very foundations of this divided society.
PRAISE
“A stone-cold masterpiece. This is Gish Jen’s moment. She has pitched a perfect game.”
— Ann Patchett
“I finished The Resisters with a tear in my eye and a smile on my face. Who could ask for a better combo? Gish Jen has written a one-of-a-kind book with great characters and a warm heart. Remind Ms. Jen that the great Ernie Banks said, ‘Hey, guys, let’s play two!’ Which is my way of saying I wouldn’t mind a sequel.
P.S. This lady knows her baseball.”
— Stephen King
“Brilliant . . . A heartbreaking novel with the sensitivity, emotional range, and prophetic power of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.”
—Jean Kwok
“Can there be a dystopian novel of lightness, delicacy and charm? In which baseball, our subtle, determined summer game, is the means of resistance against the dehumanizing overlords? In which a girl who pitches like Satchel Paige is the blue-haired hero? Gish Jen says, Yes!”
— Cathleen Schine
“Inventive, funny, and tender, The Resisters is about family, baseball, and the future—but more than anything, it is about freedom, and it is about us—here, now.”
— Allegra Goodman
“I LOVE this novel as much as I fear the future Gish Jen has conjured in it. In this anything but brave new world, baseball is what survives and reminds us of our humanity, and a girl’s golden arm forms the kernel of resistance. What an enchanting conceit! Gish Jen has hit a grand slam.”
— Jane Leavy
REVIEWS
A suspenseful, deftly plotted narrative. . .Gish Jen’s fifth novel imagines a dystopia so chillingly plausible that an entire review could be spent simply describing its components.”— BOSTON GLOBE
Intricately imagined . . . The Resisters grows directly out of the soil of our current political moment. — New York Times BOOK REVIEW
Triumphantly original. . .Don’t dare call this fantasy or science fiction. This is a world all too terrifying, dangerous and real. — NEWSDAY
The magic of Gish Jen’s latest novel is that, amid a dark and cautionary tale, there’s a story also filled with electricity and humor. — WASHINGTON POST
The power of The Resisters derives from Jen's inventive elaboration on how the change happened; how Americans gratefully handed over their autonomy. . . But, with her characteristic generosity and restrained optimism, Jen. . offers hope that, after a long, misbegotten seventh-inning stretch, Americans will once again take up the hard work of participatory democracy.— FRESH AIR/NPR
Winning, suspenseful. . .If you’re going to write a dystopian novel in our increasingly dystopian world. . . you may as well have some fun with it [and] Gish Jen certainly does.— SEATTLE TIMES
[Gish Jen] has long had a feel for sweeping, subversive explorations of American life . . . Jen reveals how America became AutoAmerica, one seemingly tiny but cumulatively fatal development at a time. — ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
Jen takes us on an entertaining ride in a new yet familiar world as we contemplate that “it was we who made our world what it was. It was we who were responsible.”— MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
[A] shrewd and provocative near-future novel . . . [Jen’s] intelligence and control shine through in a chilling portrait of the casual acceptance of totalitarianism. — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jen's captivating dystopian novel is about family and intolerance and how we slip-slide-surrender to technology, but its beating heart is baseball, and what it means to the real American spirit. . . the best of the spring baseball book lineup. — MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
George Orwell would be proud.— SHELF AWARENESS
A short short story based on THE RESISTERS for the Privacy Project at the New York Times.
Gish at Symphony Space in New York City.
