Set in Boston where LifeCorp promises “everything you’d ever want if you’re willing to work for it” (93), The Dividing Sky by Jill Tew tells the story of the Lowers who toil for the privileged Uppers as mindless zombies hunting for their next fix of Mean. Brainwashed to believe that working hard and increasing their productivity scores will ensure “a world of value,” the Lowers find their escape in the Arcades where their brains are “seduced with oversaturated snippets to distract them from their monotonous realities” (80).
Enter eighteen-year-old Liv Newman who serves as an EmoProxy, a technological oddity with the ability to record emotional memories that provide Uppers an escape from the mundane elements of their lives. Because these snippets add to “the scrapbook of your life” (11), LifeCorp refers to them as Scraps. Liv wonders if they’re something more since one of the Uppers, Arthur Preston seems addicted to them. Furthermore, Liv realizes that her “expertly crafted experiences” differ from the “quick hits of lust, glee, and exhilaration [the Arcades provide to get the Lowers] amped up and back to work” (80).
Hoping to escape LifeCorp’s shackles and provide a better life for herself and her crew of friends, which includes nine-year-old Celeste, a genius inventor who wants to be useful, Liv is on the Forecmen’s watch list. Although LifeCorp uses Mean to increase compliance, they believe Liv is distributing a new drug, Orange Haze, something they’ve detected in brain scans. “If people stop caring about Mean, LifeCorp loses control” (56), and Adrian Rao can’t let that happen.
In this hyper-capitalist futuristic world, Adrian Rao works with the Forcemen, LifeCorp’s police force that keeps the citizens in line. Until he ends up pursuing Liv into the Outerlands where she has gone to secure a Scrap for Mr. Preston, Adrian believes he’s preserving peace and prosperity.
Nas is Adrian’s best friend and partner, a droid who is a “whole new level of smart” (51). Although droids are not creative, LifeCorp has created them for their programming efficiency. He accompanies Adrian into the woods to apprehend their suspect. The partners each go a separate route, focused on their target. What Adrian didn’t count on his Liv’s having wiped her memory so that when he finds her, he is disarmed by a side of her personality that he didn’t know existed.
All Liv can remember is that she has to collect a Scrap of the stars, and Adrian plays along, identifying as her bodyguard. On their way to the top of Mount Barton, the pair is apprehended by a group of raiders, a resistance faction in the Outerlands called the Haven. In the Havener’s camp, the two Metro citizens discover another lifestyle, one where life isn’t glamorous or flashy, but it isn’t a constant effort of “striving and hustling for even an ounce of stability” (285). Here, life is lived at a slower pace and doesn’t “revolve around credits, productivity scores, VitaBars, and Mean” (286). While with the Haveners and their leader Reem, Adrian and Liv wonder if life can’t be based on “love and connection instead of pleasure and greed” (288). When Liv’s memory wipe resets and she discovers the lie she has been living, all mayhem breaks loose.
Tew cleverly alludes to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden on several occasions to support her point that living deliberately does not include compliance, productivity scores, socioeconomic divides, technological adaptations, drug addiction, and other forms of mindless escapism. As the pair seeks what Reem calls “true fulfillment,” they must surmount the considerable obstacles that befall them.
- Donna