Monday, January 24, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained from the publisher in advance of the book's release on February 1, 2022 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.      

The Violence is the latest novel from author Delilah S. Dawson, who has written a ton of works under at least three different names - although I honestly haven't read too much of her long fiction.  As explained by the author's note that opens the novel, it's also a very personal novel, because it uses its science fiction concept - a new pandemic that makes people go into mindless violent rages with superhuman strength, pummeling and usually killing those in their way - to deal with the subject of spousal and domestic abuse, and how it perpetuates and how the victims are changed and react to the abuse.  

And the result is often hard to read, but is still very powerful and very good in the end.  The story follows three generations of women in a family: mother Chelsea, spouse to an abusive husband who belittles and physically abuses her along with his friends; daughter Ella, scared of her father and stuck in a relationship with the boy at school everyone loves, who tries to make her do things she's uncomfortable with; and grandma Patricia, who escaped an abusive mother and has camouflaged herself as a trophy wife for a series of rich husbands and pushed away her blood family as an inconvenience for her security.  The characters (especially Patricia) aren't always likable, and the story sometimes gets almost a bit too ridiculous for believability, but it really works at showing the horror of abuse even in a world with truly random violence, and ends thankfully on a happy note.  Mainly.  

Trigger Warnings: Domestic Violence, Physical and Emotional Abuse and how it affects people and how tough it is to get through it are the central theme of this book.  The book also features animal and pet death, brutally so in at least one case.  As noted above and below, this is a very strong book for its themes, but how it gets there will not be for everyone.


-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------
Chelsea Martin sits at home, confronted by an unbelievable overdraft notification, and dreads for her husband to come home.  If she arranges everything right for him, has the kids waiting for him as he likes, doesn't talk back to him, and does everything right, maybe - just maybe - she'll be able to confront him about it without him snapping, without him gripping her so tightly, without him hurting her too badly....such that her two girls, teen Ella and little girl Brooklyn, might not notice.  

But Ella always notices, and is always just one digit away from calling 9-1-1.  But she doubts anyone would listen to her if she placed the call to report her dad, and she has her own problems, like a boyfriend that all the girls in school envy her for in the school's golden boy Hayden.  But Hayden isn't what she dreamed, as he pushes her and pushes her to give more than she's comfortable, and all the other girls, the ones she once thought were her friends, make her feel like she's the one doing wrong, and like they wouldn't say a word in her favor if she dared to complain.  

And then there's Chelsea's mother Patricia, who wants nothing to do with her family, having managed to spend the last few decades repeatedly marrying rich men and adapting herself to fit their societies, so that she is always safe, provided for and comfortable - even if those men inevitably cheat on her with their secretaries.  Patricia knows she will always adapt such that she's always secure, and will never be left out in the cold again, right?  

But then The Violence hits America, a disease spread by mosquitos that randomly drives its victims into an unstoppable rage, turning them into superhuman beings of violence who kill those they turn on without thinking, until they snap out of it a few minutes later with no memory of what they've done.  It's a new pandemic that will change America, and will force Chelsea, Ella, and Patricia out of their status quos, and force them to confront what they've done and are willing to do in order to survive....
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Okay that's a super long plot summary for me, but I wanted to put forth all three main characters, whose stories we jump between chapter to chapter (although the story does not rotate between its three point of view characters - it will go back and forth between two characters a few times in a row sometimes before returning to the third) in the plot summary, because well this is all three of their stories (as well as little Brooklyn's, too young to understand and get her own viewpoint).  The characters live in a near future world that's recognizable if somehow slightly more crappy than our own - a president heavily implied to be Trump has been reelected, such that the government is downright useless when the Violence presents a new post-COVID pandemic, a vaccine is developed but given only to the rich, the poor and disadvantaged are abandoned by the elites to the threat of the Violence, and men (and not just men, but mostly men)......are still awful way too often to women.  

And we see that through our three main characters, as they each deal with the abuse they take from men, and occasionally from other women (Patricia from her mom, Chelsea from Patricia herself emotionally, and even Ella to some extent from the way other girls in school look at her) and how it impacts them.  For Chelsea, the most significant of the characters, her husband was supposed to be her dream, but he got to live his life and go to college when she got pregnant, got to beat her repeatedly and yet threaten her by comingling their finances and threatening her with his loyal cop buddies, and made her feel small and weak at all times, afraid to do anything for her own self that he didn't approve.  For Ella, that was seeing her father abuse her mother, seeing him once act that way towards her and fearing it happening again, and then falling into a high school relationship with a boy who just can't seem to understand no, even if he hasn't yet become her dad. 

And over the course of the story, as they deal with their abusers, and they deal with the Violence and what it makes them do, they go through the ringer but somehow come to learn just how much they've been put down by abuse and take steps to move forward in a healthier direction.  For Chelsea that comes from, after a significant amount of not just abuse, but bad luck causing her misfortune and separation for her children, the fortunate opportunity of finding a group of likeminded and likewise-suffering individuals coming together to survive, who are led essentially by a woman who essentially serves as a psychiatrist, who helps her realize how much she's limited herself due to her abuser, and how to push forward and fight for who she herself is.  For Ella, it comes from surviving on her own....barely....and then running into the one thing she never could've expected: kindness from strangers, who show her there is something else out there than abuse, and make her realize that she doesn't need those others who would use her, who would try to make her feel bad for their own flaws, and for her pointing them out.  

And then there's Patricia, easily the most hateable of the trio, because she's an utter ass for the first half of the book, too caught up in keeping up appearances as a rich privileged woman - something she definitely did not grow up as - so that she can maintain her country club wife as a trophy woman, even if that means never having anyone to care for and having only people around her who clearly are tiring of her.  She fucks over both the other main characters with her actions and is directly responsible for a bunch of their problems.  And so when that's suddenly thrown away from her and she finds herself scrambling for any next way forward....and burdened by suddenly having a person to care for, you almost want to enjoy the schaedenfreude of it all...except the situation makes her situation as horrifying as the others, and her change and realization of what she's lost becoming the person she became is done really well.  For abuse can make one small or it can make one scared....or in Patricia's case, it can make one perpetuate the abuse in a soulless cycle that leaves one without any joy of one's own even after seemingly "escaping".  

All this is done in a book that is naturally hard to read, but also is a bit ridiculous at times, as well The Violence is quite silly honestly, even if its after effects are not.  There's some anti government vibes here that may rub one the wrong way (although a lot of that is because of who is in charge of that government here) and the place where the characters find happiness in the end is utterly ridiculous honestly....and yet it works.  This is not the most poignant book about abuse I've read in the last few years, and unfortunately I've read a whole bunch because the topic is increasingly relevant, but it works very well and is concise in its message, and is worth your time.  

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