The Unraveling

By: Benjamin Rosenbaum

Narrated by: Fred Berman

In the distant future, somewhere in the galaxy, a world has evolved where each person has multiple bodies, cybernetics has abolished privacy, and individual and family success are reliant upon instantaneous evaluations of how well each member conforms to the rigid social system.

Young Fift is an only child of the Staid gender, struggling to maintain zir position in the system while developing a friendship with the acclaimed bioengineer Shria — a controversial and intriguing friendship, since Shria is Vail-gendered.

Soon, Fift and Shria unintentionally wind up at the center of a scandalous art spectacle which turns into a multilayered unraveling of society. Fift is torn between zir attraction to Shria and the safety of zir family and between staying true to zir feelings and social compliance. Then, zir personal crises suddenly take on global significance.

What’s a young Staid to do when the whole world is watching?

©2021 Benjamin Rosenbaum (P)2021 Podium Audio

Fift + Shria Forever!! Instant classic

The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum is at once a hilarious far future comedy of manners, a deep deconstruction of gender norms, a pointed critique of how lives can be shaped by mass surveillance that claims to be benevolent, and a coming of age tale that sparks a social revolution.

Narrative approach:

Aside from a few interludes that form in-world texts expanding our view of the events, The Unraveling is narrated from the point of view of one character, in three bodies. So three points of view. But actually, more – because in Foo, everyone has access to high-definition audiovisual feeds of practically every place, so sometimes the POV is Fift Brulio of Iraxis cohort watching zir friends from afar. Like our networked world of social media, one can interact over distance, “sending” to one’s friends and family at any time. But one also has choices like “What should my other two bodies be doing while I go out for a mangareme fluffy [drink] with a friend?” Perhaps one body is taking a nap, or eating lunch with several of one’s parents (did I forget to mention that monogamy is unheard of in this book?). If one wants to bestow special attention on another person, one can visit them double-bodied. So the narrative jumps rapidly from one body to another, and across the feeds. As an ADHDer I loved it, and rarely had any problem integrating the information from multiple sources at once. I cannot guarantee that every reader will have that experience. (Note: This is an area where the audiobook narrated by Fred Berman really shines. Not only the multiple bodies, but the eight fathers are all clearly distinguished in the writing and reading.)

Staids and Vails:

Despite the possibility of modifying your bodies in any way imaginable, there are only two genders in Foo, unrelated to physical bodies. Shortly after birth, the Midwives come to assess the infant, and then assign its gender. From then on, key aspects of that child’s upbringing are predetermined. The restrictiveness around gender is a big problem, which the story centers and tackles head-on.

Vails (pronouns: ve/vir) are given to dramatic flights of emotion, recreational sex, and fighting. They literally settle their disagreements on the fighting mats. Staids (pronouns: ze/zir), on the other hand are quiet, reserved, and scholarly. Instead of fighting, they begin training at age 5 in the “long conversation,” a sort of far future yeshiva/school for analytical thought and defining the well-ordered society. In their first century of life, staids and vails are only allowed to have same-gender romances.

What kind of story is this, anyway?

As mentioned above, The Unraveling is social science fiction, with gonzo technology which often goes unexplained. If you need to know how the extreme body modifications or somatic integration work, you’d be better off picking up a nonfiction book on transhumanism. But if you want to reflect on the EFFECTS of being simultaneously co-located in multiple places, living hundreds of years, or having an audience that ranges from 0 to billions at any given time, then The Unraveling is the book for you!

At the outset, we see Fift’s eight fathers bickering over this and that, with all the timeworn banter of people who have known and loved and fought each other for a very long time. There are many laugh-out-loud moments if you like that sort of family comedy. It feels like Samuel R Delany meets Everybody Loves Raymond. But the mood gradually becomes serious, as Fift’s inability to perform zir staid-gender appropriately, and zir desire to support zir childhood vail-friend Shria increasingly threaten the social credit score of zir family and disturb the artificial stasis imposed on Foo by the seemingly all-powerful Midwives. We are told of key incidents in Fift and Shria’s lives and the power of secrecy (which is nearly impossible in that world) and breaking taboos.

This is also a book about parenting – how the best parental intentions can stifle child, and how the threat of “losing your child” might drive one to absurd lengths and cause more harm than good.

There is a social revolution, in which political Clowns are a catalyst, but ultimately love and friendship are more important than the best slogans or spectacles. My Jewish friends may notice a nod to bringing Talmud out of the yeshiva and into public protest that gave me chills (of the good sort).

I wish I could describe all the ways this bizarro, funny, challenging book moved me in my vailish feelings. I fell in love with Fift and Shria, and their struggles to make their world a place where everyone could have a home and family. Solving the obvious needs – food, clothing, shelter, the body that suits you best – isn’t enough. We need love and friendship, family and community too. And those are things worth fighting for, not just watching someone else enjoy over the feed.

Mind bending world building

This is one of those books that takes your whole brain to experience and understand. Don't let the large lexicon push you away from the story, which is in its own way a coming of age story. The performance was excellent. This is a novel that bursts at the seams with details and characters.

What?

This book was classified as humorous science fiction. I would classify it as not even remotely understandable Science Fiction. Fred Berman is one of my favorite narrators and even he could not make this book interesting enough for me to continue past the first few hours. The premise of multiple bodies connected to a singular consciousness is interesting but after that, the plot if there is one, went nowhere. To give the author credit, perhaps this is a book that is better read than narrated. Definitely not credit worthy for me.