Book Review- Sarah Gailey's The Echo Wife

Thank you to Macmillan-Tor/Forge for providing me with a free copy of Sarah Gailey’s novel, The Echo Wife, in exchange for an honest review.

Evelyn, a scientist who is a pioneer in the field of cloning, is married to her job. Her dedication and singular focus is so fierce, that she is blindsided when her husband, Nathan, asks for a divorce. Soon after they begin to live separate lives, Evelyn discovers that Nathan, a fellow, albeit somewhat lazy scientist, has been stealing Evelyn’s work for very personal reasons. Nathan has created, Martine, a clone of Evelyn.

Even more shocking, Martine is pregnant, giving Nathan the one thing that Evelyn denied him; a baby. Theoretically, Martine’s pregnancy should be impossible and morally, it is dubious, as Nathan programed Martine to both be compliant and to have strong desires for a baby. Should a clone have the same rights as humans, and if so, does this pregnancy violate Martine’s rights?

The existence of Martine threatens to damage Evelyn’s credibility and research funding. The threat level is dramatically increased when Martine calls Evelyn in desperation, asking for help that only Evelyn can provide. When Evelyn and Martine connect, they begin to unravel the depth of Nathan’s deceit and Evelyn begins to question what it means to be human.

I throughly enjoyed The Echo Wife. Admittedly, early on, I thought, “Oh, I know where this story is going,” but I couldn't have been more wrong. It’s surprising and fresh. Set in the near future, the plot has shades of West World, Black Mirror, The Stepford Wives, Frankenstein, and Ex Machina.

The story is sharp and fast-paced like a thriller, yet it is dotted with questions that make you consider what it means to be human or what is the morality of creating a life? Is a clone life the same as human life and do clones have agency? Should they have agency? When Evelyn is confronted with interacting with a clone in a real world setting, she has difficulty in seeing her life’s work as just science experiments. She is surprised by how Martine interacts with the world, sometimes against her programing.

Gailey’s characters are engaging, especially Evelyn, as The Echo Wife is told from her first-person perspective. Gailey does an excellent job at scene setting, in particular the laboratory scenes where she is describing the process of creating a clone. Several scenes in The Echo Wife are quite graphic and hard to stomach, but they are not gratuitous. They serve to build the greater story and play into the theme of humanity.

I was also surprised to discover that The Echo Wife is a kick-ass feminist story. Evelyn and Martine are strong women. Martine was created to be a sweet, “Stepford Wife” for Nathan, but that is certainly not where she views her destiny. Evelyn, as strong as she is in many ways, also admits a prior weakness for Nathan and a jealousy towards Martine. The arc of the story sees her handling these emotions and learning what it means to be both a better scientist and a better person.

I can’t praise The Echo Wife enough. Gailey is a “new to me” author and I look forward to reading her other books!

Book Review- Rajeev Balasubramanyam' Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group for providing me with a copy of Rajeev Balasubramanyam’s novel, Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss, in exchange for an honest review.

Cambridge economics professor, Dr. Chandrasekhar aka “Charles,” is having a mid-life crisis. He has, once again, been forced to face the crushing disappointment and indignity of having been passed over for a Nobel Prize. This wouldn’t be so terrible, if in pursuit of his career, he hadn’t sacrificed personal happiness and developing relationships with his family. He is divorced from his wife Jean, who has remarried and moved from England to Colorado with their teenage daughter, Jasmine. Jasmine is acting out and getting into major trouble, including experimenting with drugs. Charles cannot relate to his older children. His son, Sunny, is a successful entrepreneur and is so consumed with his business, that he has little time for his family. After a major ideological disagreement, Charles has not spoken to his eldest daughter, Radha, in years and doesn’t even know where she is living.

After experiencing a major health scare, Charles takes a break from teaching at Cambridge and travels to the United States. He begins to reconnect with Jasmine, Jean, and Jean’s new husband. It’s an odd family dynamic, but not without love and concern. Charles begins to realize that he needs to change his outlook and to begin to focus on deepening his relationships, both to help himself and his children.

Balasubramanyam has a strong writer’s voice, which he uses effectively to set the tone of both the story and especially Charles. The opening chapters introduce us to Charles, who is quite a difficult person, someone who delights in both being a curmudgeon and destroying others. It’s humorous, even though the reader is keenly aware that Charles is a very unhappy person. It also sets us up for his transformation. Charles makes a lot of mistakes, but he is the perfect character to undergo a massive transformation and we root for him to succeed.

I really loved the relationship between Jasmine and Charles. Jasmine’s troubles are generally those of a confused and angry teenager, but we soon see that her acting out and experimentation is taking her down a dark path. Drug addition or perhaps consequences of spending time with unsavory people, are looming on her horizon. Charles is devastated that this is happening to his daughter and initially he feels quite helpless. However, he is struck with the idea that Jasmine can be sent to a monastery to live with a woman that he met at his yoga retreat. Charles shifts from being a very self-involved character, to someone who begins to think of others, starting with his beloved youngest daughter. Previous to his experience at the yoga retreat, Charles would never have suggested this for his daughter, but through his personal enlightenment, he can now help her. I was taken with the novel’s themes of balancing self-reliance with building relationships. You can’t help others without fixing yourself, but fixing yourself means little, if you can’t experience deep relationships with other people.

Generally, I found the story to be fast-paced, although it lost a little steam in the middle. I think it’s because although it was very important to the character arc for Charles to discover himself at the yoga retreat, this aspect was less interesting than that of his repairing the relationship with his family. I thought it was interesting that Charles is not necessarily enlightened after the yoga retreat. It helps him on his way, but it is only a stepping stone towards the bliss he finds from connecting with his family. I like that the book wraps on a hopeful note, yet not unrealistic or completely perfect. Charles and his family members, still have a lot to learn, but they have made great strides.

Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss is an uplifting redemption story that begs readers to reflection on their own lives. Balasubramanyam is a talented writer and I recommend Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss.