Vox

Christina Dalcher was raised in New Jersey. She attended Georgetown University and received a PhD in linguistics. Later, Dalcher moved to London to research at City University, London. There, she studied how speakers of different British dialects learned, heard, and produced the r sound. After living in London, Dalcher taught linguistics, academic writing, phonetics, beginning Italian, and other related classes at a variety of British and American universities, as well as at a university in Abu Dhabi. Dalcher had been writing and publishing flash fiction (short stories shorter than 1500 words) for some time when, in 2017, she decided to expand one of her stories into what would become Vox. She wrote Vox in about two months. Following Vox, Dalcher has written several other novels that explore similar themes. She lives in Virginia with her husband.

While Vox never names names, it very clearly alludes to Donald Trump’s time as president, and President Myers is a fictional analogue for former President Trump. Specifically, the novel draws on Trump’s successful overtures toward evangelical Christians in the leadup to the 2016 election. Analysists have noted that while Trump himself doesn’t adhere to conventional Christian values or lifestyle choices—he’s been married three times, is known for infidelity, and has been accused of sexual assault—evangelical Christians overwhelmingly voted for him in 2016 due to his promises to appoint justices to the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court who would be hostile to protecting or expanding abortion rights. Wernicke’s aphasia, also known as receptive aphasia, is a condition that occurs most commonly in people who have suffered strokes, though it can also happen to people who develop brain tumors in Wernicke’s area of the brain or who suffer traumatic brain injuries. Those afflicted struggle to understand written and spoken language, and their speech is totally unintelligible—and they often don’t realize their speech is impossible to understand. Treatment varies from case to case, but nearly always includes speech-language therapy to help patients learn to successfully express themselves. There is, however, no cure.

The most obvious related work to Vox is, of course, Margaret Atwood’s classic novel The Handmaid’s Tale, which also sees women subjugated in an alternate United States where a religious faction has taken over the government. Within the book itself, Jean makes references to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, and George Orwell’s 1984, as well as children’s classics like A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh stories. Dalcher also lists Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 as an influence more generally, in addition to Ira Levin’s novel The Stepford Wives, Stephen King’s horror novels (Carrie; It), and the work of children’s author Roald Dahl (Matilda; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Published in 2018, midway through former President Trump’s term in office, Vox was released alongside several other novels that drew some inspiration from or connections with The Handmaid’s Tale and that seemed to respond specifically to the push in American politics to curtail women’s rights. These include Naomi Alderman’s The Power, Red Clocks by Leni Zumas, and Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich. Since Vox, Dalcher has published several other novels that explore similar themes, including Master Class and Femlandia.