There’s something about an understated prose style in fiction that can make a novel more immersive in my eyes. Compared to overblown descriptive passages or soap-opera plotting, a more subtle narrative draws the reader into the simply evoked world with greater power, and that’s certainly the case for this week’s books.
American author Helen Phillips has written six novels, half of which have had a speculative edge. This is also true of Hum, a type of domestic drama in a near-future dystopia that is scary in its similarity to today.
In order to make some money after losing her job, May agrees to an experimental face surgery that makes her unidentifiable to the totalitarian, machine-run government. She blows her money on a trip to the Botanic Garden with her husband Jem and two small children, a much-needed blast of fresh air and nature in their sadly denuded world. May and her family are addicted to their screens, along with everyone else in the world, and she takes this opportunity to disconnect, insisting they all leave their devices at home, the children’s wrist-worn AIs included. When the children go missing, the parents, so used to tracking them at all times, panic.
This is the turning point of a fascinating and provocative novel, as May’s decisions backfire in numerous ways. The hums of the book’s title are worryingly nice but smothering robots who now run society, and their constant presence adds an undercurrent of creepy manipulation to the story.
This is a book about a lot of things – parental anxiety, ecological collapse, constant surveillance, the perils of runaway capitalism. But it is never heavy-handed, preferring to reflect on these issues through a nervous domestic narrative that has a greater emotional impact as a result.
Hum by Helen Phillips is out now (Atlantic, £9.99). You can buy it from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.
