To the best of my recollection, nobody ever addresses the fact that the renowned prophetess Mother Eve is mixed race. Though Alderman does consider the differing responses in different countries, such as riots in India where women protest sexual harassment, or uprisings in Moldova by trafficked women, she depicts few, if any, divides along racial and religious lines. Though we’re told that two of the four main characters are people of color, the intersections of race and gender are barely explored. Yet for all the ambition of the premise, The Power leaves out huge, crucial swathes of human experience in favor of staying within a white, cis, straight comfort zone. One becomes a prophet, and one an international crime boss, and one a world-renowned journalist / refugee and one a world-changing politician and it’s a tribute to Naomi Alderman that she makes their journeys (generally) believable. The four central characters - Margot, Allie, Roxy, and Tunde - all begin as very recognizable humans. You have to keep reading to find out what happens next, even though what happens next is inevitably terrible. It’s a message that resonates deeply under this presidency.Īs a narrative, The Power succeeds brilliantly: It’s tense, engaging, propulsive. The characters in The Power would rather see everyone die, than change. Naomi Alderman wasn’t just writing a story about gender - in fact, Renay argues (I think rightly!) that she wasn’t writing about gender at all - but about the downfall of a society that cannot reconcile itself to a new balance of power. 2016 was already a terrifying real-life master class in the ways power corrupts morality it was not my opinion that I needed a fictional one, as well.īut time passed, and I got used to this new reality (which I’m perennially angry with myself for, which is stupid because that’s how humans are, but also what is wrong with me and how could anyone get used to this?), and my friend Renay said The Power was really good though flawed, and what can I say? I like a book with ambition. 2016 was the year I woke up at three in the morning and learned that white America had elected Donald Trump to the presidency. 2016 was the year Alton Sterling was killed in my home state. I resisted The Power because I am tired of power and the things people do to keep it. The premise is that women - through a new organ called a skein, located at their collarbones - suddenly become more physically powerful than men, able to transmit strong jolts of electricity. Since its release in 2016, Naomi Alderman’s The Power has been impossible to miss, receiving accolades from the New York Times and President Barack Obama, among many many others.
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