This, tonight, this would be what I was remembered for. This would be the focus of my eulogy. Not the other thing, not the shameful disaster that my life had briefly become thanks to Nathan. No one would be talking about that — about Nathan and his weakness. It would be this, just this, my work and my research and my success. I lifted a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, then arrested my arm in the middle of the movement, Nathan’s voice ringing through my memory. Don’t fidget. You look exactly like your mother when you fidget.
First of all: Don’t read the blurb for The Echo Wife if you decide to pick this up; it gives away far too much of the initiating premise that author Sarah Gailey spends several chapters building up to slowly. This is not exactly the “non-stop thrill ride” that that blurb promises, but the plot does have a lot of twists that I didn’t see coming and I was often delighted to be surprised. And while it is about a scientist, I really wouldn’t consider this sci-fi (and for the most part, the sciencey bits don’t really hold up and you have to just go with it). Ultimately, The Echo Wife uses a scientific “what if?” to examine questions of agency, identity, gender roles, and what makes us human; what makes us us. This was a quick and interesting read, and while the plot might not bear much scrutiny, I appreciate what Gailey was going for here. Spoilers (but not beyond those found in the blurb) beyond this point. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
She was made for this, and looking at her now was a stark reminder of how different she was from me, and the awful truth that every difference was on purpose. There were no coincidental differences between us. Anything I admired about her was, by necessity, something I found lacking in myself. I had to hate her just a little if I was going to survive any of this, because if I truly believed she was better than me, it meant that Nathan had been right to make her. If Martine was better than me, Nathan had been right to stop loving me.
Evelyn Caldwell is an award-winning scientist, a pioneer in the field of human cloning. She also became divorced recently when she discovered that her husband (and one time research partner) had stolen her own methods in order to start a relationship with a clone of herself; one with all of her own sharp edges smoothed over. At first I found that concept sort of sweet — conceivably, Nathan could have created any fantasy sexbot but what he wanted was the woman he married, but more available — but as the story goes along the concept becomes more and more horrifying: Nathan wanted a clone of Evelyn in order to control and debase the woman who had turned out to be more brilliant and successful than he; by using Evelyn’s patented “Caldwell Method”, Nathan was able to create a version of her that was programmed to please, to never fight back, to want the children that Evelyn disdained.
As the plot progresses, there are flashbacks to Evelyn’s childhood and we meet her brilliant but violent and controlling father, and the mother who taught her how to tiptoe and cringe around him. We can recognise that these two influences are at war within Evelyn — she wants to be strong and respected like her father, but without the hornet’s barb, and she’s constantly telling herself not to fidget or apologise like her mother would — and when she meets her clone, Martine, Evelyn realises that this kind and patient version of herself could have been her own fate with different childhood influences. I found all of these bits interesting.
I told myself that it was a question of choice, of agency. A clone getting pregnant wasn’t just wrong because it felt strange. It was wrong because, no matter how much Martine developed her own personality and desires, she didn’t have a right to them. She was a made thing. She was a tool, and tools don’t have the right to decide how they’re used.
Evelyn is used to thinking of the clones she creates as being disposable tools — used as body doubles, organ farms, or research subjects before dispassionately euthanising and cremating them — and she is offended by Martine’s attachment to the baby she’s carrying; even if Martine thinks and acts like a person, is genetically identical to a person, Evelyn refuses to grant her personhood. Ultimately, this gets tied back to Evelyn’s parents and how her father had effaced her mother’s personhood, and I found all of this interesting, too. Once again it's like reliving the war between Evelyn's parents, and thanks to Nathan's efforts, there's a version of her out there where the mother's personality has taken control; it's to Evelyn's shame that dealing with Martine sees her father's personality taking control of herself.
Again: the details of the plot and the science behind the making and programming of these clones don’t hold up to scrutiny, but I was open to being entertained and this unpredictable, and somewhat thought-provoking, story fit the bill.
