As a society, we rely on our government and those in power to keep us safe. What happens when the people we’ve entrusted to care for us fail in their responsibilities, or worse, actively cause us harm? It’s a question that warrants our attention and also one that can make for gripping storylines. Too bad abuses of power exist in more than just fiction.
When I saw a headline reading, The Uterus Collector, I found out just how grisly real-life can be. Behind that headline waited a shocking story about women in an immigration detention center in Georgia who claimed they were being subjected to unnecessary, invasive, gynecological procedures that were leaving them sterile. This horrible bit of news was the seed that led me to dream up the plot of my new novel Counting Backwards, which imagines what happens when the government oversteps its boundaries in relation to reproductive autonomy of the incarcerated. In Counting Backwards, one woman, alone, is brave enough to defend these women and fight the powers that be.
How can we convince more people to stand up for the rights of others? Maybe the answer lies in reading stories about all the ways power can be abused. In examining the problem, we can learn more about how to call upon our own bravery and then fashion appropriate solutions.
Fiction is a powerful tool for giving voice to the abused and examining how government power can be kept properly in check. If these questions speak to you, too, here are more titles you should check out.
These novels provide cautionary reminders of how easily power can be abused and the ways in which negative effects can reverberate for the more vulnerable when people in power act solely in their own interests. Whether it’s through nonconsensual sterilization, government-mandated marriage, or corporate manipulation, these books provide insightful, gripping narratives that highlight the importance of holding those in positions of power accountable for their actions.
John Marrs, The Marriage Act
What if marriage weren’t a choice, but was required by the government? Talk about overstepping. This is the question John Marrs explores in his riveting story, The Marriage Act. He imagines a dystopian future where the government mandates marriage—no exceptions. The government controls all aspects of its citizens’ personal lives, including when they are required to marry and whom they must choose. The stakes are high as characters attempt to navigate love, freedom, and coercion in an imagined world where their right to choose their own partners has been taken from them. As characters find themselves forced by the government into unions with people they wouldn’t have chosen, they struggle not only with romantic decisions, but with questions of personal autonomy and the impact of institutional control over such personal decisions. The Marriage Act is truly a thought-provoking examination of how far a government can extend its power.
Lisa Wingate, When We Were Yours
Historical fiction based on a true story, When We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate recounts the gut-wrenching circumstances surrounding the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, a notorious adoption organization that was little more than a scam. The story depicts the way the organization literally stole children from their families and sold them to affluent parents struggling to have their own children. The book illustrates how a corrupt system of power allowed for poor, vulnerable families to be exploited in this way. State-run institutions knew it, and they were complicit. Exploring the long-lasting emotional implications caused to families involved, as well as the broader systemic corruption, the book sheds light on a dark side of government overreach that can be perpetrated in the name of charity.
Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand
Another story inspired by real-life events, Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez is a retelling of the stunning abuses of power within America’s family planning clinics back in the 1970s. In this harrowing tale, a nurse uncovers a plot to forcibly sterilize Black women and girls under the guise of providing medical care. Set during the immediate aftermath of the civil rights movement, the novel focuses the harm to families caused by medical exploitation, institutionalized racism, and the corruption of the healthcare industry. It also deftly highlights the need for education and resources in order to protect intimate, personal rights.
Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger
The Passenger, the first book in a two-book series by Cormac McCarthy, tells a thought-provoking story about the consequences of living in a society that manipulates personal lives for its own gains. The novel centers around a man named Bobby, who stumbles onto the wreckage of a plane crash and then discovers one of the passengers is missing. As he looks deeper into the situation, he gets caught in an intricate web of government surveillance and control, where his actions are being watched, his documents seized, and his sense of personal security thoroughly destroyed. Showing just how craftily the government’s reach can infiltrate personal and psychological realms, Turow expertly manipulates his characters’ sense of reality. Also covering themes of existential crisis, freedom, and paranoia, the book illustrate the profound and frightening ramifications of a government that goes too far.
Scott Turow, The Last Trial
A legal thriller that takes a deep dive into abuses of power in our judicial system. The Last Trial follows a seasoned defense attorney who decides to take on one last high-stakes case involving corruption within a pharmaceutical company. As the trial unfolds, the dark side of corporate influence becomes increasingly apparent, highlighting what can go wrong when money intertwines with politics in the judicial process. Through riveting, suspenseful courtroom drama and multi-faceted, nuanced characters Turow depicts governmental and corporate greed influencing outcomes for power players and leaving the more vulnerable without recourse.
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