When She Woke
First edition
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| Author | Hillary Jordan |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher |
Alonquin Books (US) HarperCollins (UK/Canada) |
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Publication date
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October 2011 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 344 |
| ISBN | |
When She Woke is the second novel by American author Hillary Jordan, published in October 2011. It has been translated into French, Spanish, Turkish, German, Portuguese and Chinese. The novel is a dystopian reimagining of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, set in a future theocratic America where rather than being imprisoned and rehabilitated, criminals are punished by being "chromed" – having their skin color genetically altered to fit their crime – and released into the general population to survive as best they can.
In an unspecified future 26 year old Hannah Payne awakes in a prison cell having been chromed (i.e. having her skin altered) red for murder. Hannah lives in Texas after a great outbreak of a sexually transmitted infection caused the majority of women of the world to become sterile leading to widespread panic, the rise of Christianity, and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Hannah belonged to a mega-church and after her father was the victim of a terror attack which threatened to leave him partially blind her family was offered comfort by the reverend Aidan Dale. Hannah and the reverend began an affair leading to Hannah's pregnancy. Unwilling to shame the married Dale, Hannah had an illegal abortion and was picked up immediately afterwards and convicted of the murder of her fetus. Because she refused to name her abortionist or Aidan, Hannah was sentenced to 16 years as a chrome, which also meant that she would be unable to bear children during that time because of an implant.
Hannah spends the first month of her sentence in isolation in prison where a live-feed broadcasts her image around the world. After her release her father manages to secure her a six-month stint at a half-way house called the Straight Path Centre. While there Hannah is forced to live in austerity and create a doll to represent her aborted fetus which she is supposed to treat like a child. There Hannah meets Kayla, a young woman who was chromed after shooting her step-father in the stomach for molesting her sister. A month into Hannah's residency Kayla decides to leave the centre to find her boyfriend. Though Kayla invited Hannah to come with her Hannah stays on an extra day, finally leaving after witnessing one of the Path councillors destroying the doll of a woman who is to be released causing her emotional distress.
Outside Hannah visits her sister but is kicked out by her brother-in-law, whom her sister warns her has become increasingly violent after joining the vigilante terror cell known as the "Fist" who beat and kill chromes. Hannah is then able to contact Kayla through a tracker that all chromes are forced to wear. They decide to leave Texas and go stay with Kayla's cousin, but on the road they are abducted by Simone and Paul, two people who turn out to have been saving them from Fist members intending to harm them. Hannah eventually realizes that their saviours are members of the Novemberists, a group of feminists who are pro-choice. The group did not intend to save Kayla and are reluctant to help her as her crime was not related to abortion, but they reluctantly help her at Hannah's insistence.
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