Short Reviews: A New, Award-Worthy Novella from Juliette Wade

The Persistence of Blood, by Juliette Wade (Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 138, March 2018)

Juliette Wade’s newest novella, set in her underground world of Varin, begins with what must surely squick out a certain percentage of male readers: a woman beginning her menstrual flow. But this is Varin, not Earth, and everything that looks familiar runs orthogonal to our expectations. The plight of Lady Selemei, who has now recovered sufficiently from her last, near-fatal childbirth to become pregnant again, must be understood in light of her technologically advanced yet highly stratified cavern-dwelling society. She is not a 21^st Century Earth woman, and yet her situation must surely resonate with every woman who has thought for a heart-stopping moment that she might have an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy.

Selemei has few choices in the matter: forbidden to use or even possess information about contraception, and expected to churn out baby after baby for her caste in the hope that some of them might be healthy enough to survive, it seems her fate is sealed. If this description evokes of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the resonances are deep rather than superficial. Selemei’s husband truly loves her, and the couple enjoys a rich and satisfying sexual relationship. She is not disposable in his eyes, or in her own. Celibacy to preserve her life is a an unappealing option. The two of them concoct a strategy to challenge the laws regarding contraception for their caste, within the limited circumstance of risk to the mother’s life. While insufficient in 21^st Century terms, this represents a historic break with Varin tradition, certain to provoke fierce resistance. Whether in the chambers of the ruling council or a tea party for aristocratic ladies, or the simple fact that she cannot walk unaided, Selemei faces daunting obstacles.

The story’s strengths rely on the nuanced portrayal of the characters and the subtleties of their distinct, sometimes alien cultural context. In this sense, Selemei’s dilemma is not that of the Handmaids in Atwood’s tale or poor women throughout the world who lack affordable, effective birth control. It’s as much a love story as it is a political narrative. Never preachy, Wade invites the reader to draw conclusions not by diatribe but by following Selemei’s emotional journey. Courage comes in many different forms.

The painting is "Anxiety" by Edvard Munch.

The Formidable Older Woman Character

One of the pleasures of Westercon 2011 was attending the panel on "Writing Formidable Women: Making sure they're formidable; making sure they're women." (As an irrelevant side note, it's always a treat to listen to a panel I'm not actually on; among other things, I get to take notes.) As a woman writer, as a woman interested in empowerment in my own life and in those of other women, and as a reader who loves strong women characters, I appreciated many of the perspectives offered.

I've heard, and participated in, many discussions about women warriors. For some years back in the 1980s and 1990s, I was active in a network of women martial artists who were also writers (or, conversely, women writers who also studied martial arts). We tossed around ideas and our experiences in training, we pushed every boundary we could find. Marion Zimmer Bradley began editing the Sword & Sorceress anthologies in the early 1980s, and it seemed there was an explosion of kick-ass sword-wielding women heroes.

Now I'm older and am finding a particular delight in characters -- men as well as women -- who are smart enough to use violence only as a last resort. My kung fu teacher, Jimmy H. Woo, used to say that young people need to study kung fu (meaning, to work all that aggression out) but that with age comes wisdom, movements become more circular and flowing, and you end up with tai chi. Much the same holds true for my ideas about heroes. I find a particular delight in the heroic older women in, for example, The Stone War by Madeleine E. Robins, or Elizabeth Moon's wonderful Remnant Population.

Marion on THE SHATTERED CHAIN ending

Recently, someone asked me why Northlight ended as it does with regard to the relationship between Terris and Kardith. The reader felt confused about the reciprocality of feeling and whether they were ever going to get together. I answered that it's a measure of the respect and care they have for one another that they don't jump into a stereotyped "happy ending." Each still has growing and healing to do. The story gets these characters to the place where they can make those choices, where their futures are not longer enslaved to the past. To me, this is what makes Northlight a love story: love heals us. Love helps us grow.

The reader reaction reminded me of something Marion told me about how some readers were upset at the ending of The Shattered Chain (Jaelle choosing Peter Haldane). They felt angry, their expectations betrayed. I think that no matter how a writer puts together the pieces of a non-stereotyped ending, people will read through the lens of their own experiences and agendas. Marion wrote in a letter in 1980:

My own feeling about the "unsatisfactory" ending of SHATTERED CHAIN was that Jaelle, being brought up to age 11 or 12 in the Dry Towns (and sexuality is perfectly ell established by five or six, most psychologists now feel) would be pushover for any man who resembled her loved/hated cousin but was not overtly exploitive.