Surrender

December 9, 2019
Loriga (Tokyo Doesn’t Love Us Anymore) envisions in this gripping tale an unsettling dystopia in which all secrets are forbidden. After 10 years of war, a couple and the child they found wandering the abandoned landscape are evacuated from their home and relocated to “the transparent city.” The glass-domed metropolis protects its citizens from the outside world while providing for their every need. Each wall, ceiling, and floor is see-through; everyone is assigned the same nondescript clothing; and the only prohibition is on “hiding or spying.” As the unnamed male half of the couple, who narrates, begins adjusting to the glimmering new world, where nothing is private and free will is sacrificed to strict order, he begins questioning the monotonous controlled life where “mysteries and desires are devoured” by “excessive visibility.” When the authorities discover he’s shared his concerns with coworkers, they give him a pill that sends him into a deep sleep. He awakens two days later, full of overwhelming feelings of acceptance and happiness despite knowing deep down he has nothing to celebrate. Worse, a renewed swell of resistance puts him at odds with his adopted son. Loriga’s chilling portent of the future will undoubtedly resonate with readers concerned about the erosion of privacy. This memorable page-turner will appeal to fans of Brave New World.

December 15, 2019
Spanish novelist and film director Loriga (Tokyo Doesn't Love Us Anymore, 2004, etc.) traces the fortunes of a married couple progressing through an increasingly dystopian landscape. Some dystopian fiction abounds with specifics, the better to comment on the present moment. Loriga's novel--his third to appear in the U.S.--takes a more ambiguous and archetypal route. The narrator and his wife have been married a long time--long enough, at least, to have two sons old enough to be fighting in a war where they may or may not have been killed. When the novel begins, a silent child has been living with the couple for six months. "He was wounded when he arrived, which was part of why we started caring for him," the narrator writes. The boy's silence hangs over the book: Like the fate of the couple's children, it's unclear if it denotes something sinister or is a pause before a return to normalcy. Loriga balances granular details, such as the class differences between the husband and wife, with more ambiguous elements. The novel takes a shift into a more overtly science-fictional mode when the couple and their young charge are forced to move to a city--one where the buildings are transparent and privacy is a thing of the past. There are hints here of the government's potential for repressive violence and something unsettling happening with the regulation of hygiene, but, largely, life goes on. The narrator finds a job and settles into a routine, and it's only after time passes that he begins to realize that things are very wrong in both this society and his marriage. At times the book's subtlety feels too restrained, but its climax packs abundant weight. Blending a realistic portrait of a marriage with a symbolic setting brings mixed results, but this novel still has plenty of power.

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February 1, 2020
A husband and wife relatively content even though they're living in a country at war are visited one night by a young, mute boy. Having seen their two sons off to fight in the unnamed ongoing conflict, they take the child in under their class-specified protection. Thus begins Loriga's contemplative dystopian story. According to the internalized voice of the husband, the trio, now a family, must face the resource-depleting and displacing consequences of prolonged armed conflict. Forced to leave their home by their beleaguered government for reasons they accept because they have no other viable option, they find that notions of economic comfort are slowly stripped away as they focus on making it to the sanctuary of the Transparent City, where all needs will be met, and all worries will ebb away. Once there, however, the narrator finds that he must reconcile his mindset, shaped by war and the long struggle to which he was accustomed, to new circumstances. With an allegorical tone, Spanish writer Loriga presents a spare novel that yields harsh realizations and a deeply felt perception of humanity.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)