David Mitchell used the term “bone clock” in his sixth novel of the same name. It is a metaphor that captures well the idea of the finite life humans can expect to enjoy. Leni Zumas appropriates the term in this novel with the notion of a “red clock” pertaining to the idea that a woman's reproductive abilities are constrained or bounded by time. The broader aim of Red Clocks is to ask what it means to be a woman; or how much of this/such an identity is defined by the ability (or not) to reproduce, as Ro — arguably the work's main character — comes to realise there is an inbuilt societal expectation that she “should” reproduce, that she has “failed” if she does not; and this is something which has become an accepted and almost unquestioned norm. It is hard not to think of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, although the author against which Zumas will likely be most commonly compared is Margaret Atwood. In the world created by Zumas, a right-wing and religious U.S. government has made abortion illegal and IVF too, the argument being that fetuses have inalienable rights. Such a vision is all too seemingly plausible. It also alters the dynamic in respect of women's behaviour and priorities. Great characterisation, urgency and relevance; also a compelling plot.
By Leni Zumas