In a near-future dystopia, a couple give birth to a child with an unearthly pitching arm; as she grows, her family's struggles with a totalitarian government run by artificial intelligence expands as well--until she's needed for the Olympic baseball team.
Gish Jen's The Resisters is a heady mix of David Halberstam and George Orwell, Big Brother by way of Sandy Koufax.
If there was ever a year I would read two dystopian baseball novels, I guess this was it (the other was The Body Scout). This one I found to be more literary-minded, closer to an early Margaret Atwood.
Besides a few eccentric touches, the world-building is very close to believable, and probably my favorite part of the book. But the baseball passages also reflect how the sport became known as the national past-time.
The Resisters is an offbeat read for really anyone who likes genre or mainstream fiction. Recommended.
I checked it out from the New Castle-Henry County Public Library in New Castle, Indiana.
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