Master Class
(Sprache: Englisch)
From the critically-acclaimed author of the international bestseller VOX comes a suspenseful new novel that examines a disturbing near future where harsh realities follow from unreachable standards.
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From the critically-acclaimed author of the international bestseller VOX comes a suspenseful new novel that examines a disturbing near future where harsh realities follow from unreachable standards.It s impossible to know what you will do
Every child's potential is regularly determined by a standardized measurement: their quotient (Q). Score high enough, and attend a top tier school with a golden future. Score too low, and it's off to a federal boarding school with limited prospects afterwards. The purpose? An improved society where education costs drop, teachers focus on the more promising students, and parents are happy.
When your child is taken from you.
Elena Fairchild is a teacher at one of the state's elite schools. When her nine-year-old daughter bombs a monthly test and her Q score drops to a disastrously low level, she is immediately forced to leave her top school for a federal institution hundreds of miles away. As a teacher, Elena thought she understood the tiered educational system, but as a mother whose child is now gone, Elena's perspective is changed forever. She just wants her daughter back.
And she will do the unthinkable to make it happen.
Lese-Probe zu „Master Class “
ONEIt's impossible to know what you would do to escape a shitty marriage and give your daughters a fair shot at success. Would you pay money? Trade the comfort of house and home? Lie, cheat, or steal? I've asked myself these questions; I suppose many mothers do. One question I haven't asked, mostly because I don't like the answer. Not a bit. I have too strong a survival instinct. Always have.
Last night, I spoke to Malcolm again after the girls had gone to bed. I tried to put a light spin on things, to not turn him from phlegmatic to angry with my words.
"I've had enough of this, Malc," I said. "Freddie's had enough of it."
He looked up from his paperwork long enough to meet my eyes. "Had enough of what?"
"Of the numbers. Of the pressure. Of all of it."
"Noted," he said and buried himself again in pages of reports and memos. I think I heard a relieved sigh when I left to go to bed.
Things haven't been good here for a long time.
I almost can't remember how it felt before we all started carrying the Q numbers around with us, like an extra and unnatural print on the tips of our fingers, a badge of honor for some, a mark of shame for others. I suppose, after more than a decade, you can get used to anything. Like cell phones. Remember not having the entire universe in your back pocket? Remember sitting on the floor, talking to your best friend about nothing, unwinding a curly cord only to watch it kink up again? Remember all that? I do and I don't. Blockbuster two-day video rentals and bookstores the size of an airplane hangar are distant memories, faded impressions of life before streaming and same-day delivery.
It's the same way with the Q numbers, although we've carried numeric strings with us in one form or another for most of our lives: our
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social security numbers for tax returns; our home telephone numbers in case an emergency call to Mom became necessary; our grade point averages that would fill boxes in dozens of college application forms. Men, in a clothing store, became thirty-four long or sixteen-and-a-half, thirty-three. Women became dress sizes: six, eight, fourteen. In the more upscale shops, we were our measurements. In doctors' offices, we were our height and weight, watching one number creep down while the other number crept up.
We've always been our numbers. DOB. GPA. SSN. BP (systolic and diastolic). BMI. SAT and GRE and GMAT and LSAT; 35-22-35 (Marilyn, damn her); 3 (the Babe). PINs and CSCs and expiration dates. Jenny's phone number from that old song. And, for the extreme among us, the entire sixteen-digit sequence on our Visa cards. Our ages. Our net worths. Our IQs.
I think about this in the grocery store, while I stand in one of the priority lines with close to a hundred bags and cans and boxes in my cart, enough to get my family of four through a few days. Yesterday, at Safeway, five other women glared at me from three lines over. One of them, I remembered from high school. I think she was a cheerleader. Pretty, thin, not too bright. What the hell was her name? Paulette? Paulina? Patty? Patty. That's it. She was fifth in line at the only open nonpriority checkout, holding a carton of skim milk. Patty's one item compared to my one hundred. I nearly let her cut in before me, but the cashier shrugged and shook his head in a hopeless no.
"Her card won't work in this line," the kid said. "You know."
He scanned my card, my magic card with its magic number encoded on it. Nine-point-something. It's the first digit that matters.
Patty didn't say a word. She would have, once. She, or one of the other women, would have rolled her cart over and refused to move. I saw a fistfight break out at a gas station once between a short man in a suit and that guy
We've always been our numbers. DOB. GPA. SSN. BP (systolic and diastolic). BMI. SAT and GRE and GMAT and LSAT; 35-22-35 (Marilyn, damn her); 3 (the Babe). PINs and CSCs and expiration dates. Jenny's phone number from that old song. And, for the extreme among us, the entire sixteen-digit sequence on our Visa cards. Our ages. Our net worths. Our IQs.
I think about this in the grocery store, while I stand in one of the priority lines with close to a hundred bags and cans and boxes in my cart, enough to get my family of four through a few days. Yesterday, at Safeway, five other women glared at me from three lines over. One of them, I remembered from high school. I think she was a cheerleader. Pretty, thin, not too bright. What the hell was her name? Paulette? Paulina? Patty? Patty. That's it. She was fifth in line at the only open nonpriority checkout, holding a carton of skim milk. Patty's one item compared to my one hundred. I nearly let her cut in before me, but the cashier shrugged and shook his head in a hopeless no.
"Her card won't work in this line," the kid said. "You know."
He scanned my card, my magic card with its magic number encoded on it. Nine-point-something. It's the first digit that matters.
Patty didn't say a word. She would have, once. She, or one of the other women, would have rolled her cart over and refused to move. I saw a fistfight break out at a gas station once between a short man in a suit and that guy
... weniger
Autoren-Porträt von Christina Dalcher
Christina Dalcher earned her doctorate in theoretical linguistics from Georgetown University. She specializes in the phonetics of sound change in Italian and British dialects and has taught at several universities.Her short stories and flash fiction appear in more than one hundred journals worldwide. Recognition includes first place for the Bath Flash Fiction Award, nominations for the Pushcart Prize, and multiple other awards. She lives in Norfolk, Virginia, with her husband.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Christina Dalcher
- 2021, 352 Seiten, Maße: 13,8 x 20,8 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: Berkley
- ISBN-10: 044000084X
- ISBN-13: 9780440000846
- Erscheinungsdatum: 24.03.2021
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
Featured on i09 s list of April releases!"Christina Dalcher's Master Class conjures an America informed by tragic elements of its past and present where science and humanity are both abused in ways that are all-too familiar and plausible. Her heroic women and tough yet elegant prose suggest Margaret Atwood updated for this moment. Master Class will confirm your fears and affirm your hope." Michael D'Antonio, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The State Boys Rebellion
"The book's examination of the way people will accept more and more small social changes until the system becomes something unrecognizable and horrific feels timely and urgent...top notch and keeps the reader guessing. An engaging parable of dangerous social change." Kirkus Reviews
"Dalcher combines the pace and tension of a standout thriller with thought-provoking projections of the possible end result of ranking children based on test scores. Admirers of The Handmaid s Tale will be appropriately unsettled." Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Dalcher's novel reads like an expanded episode of Black Mirror; it is terrifying, haunting, and cautionary." Booklist
"Dalcher has proven herself a master author of insidious suspense." The Nerd Daily
"Poignant, chilling and painfully self-aware, Master Class is another eye-opening read from an author who is not afraid to ask the hardest questions imaginable and force her readers to answer them. BookReporter.com
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