We are both scientists, Eilish, we belong to a tradition but traditions is nothing more than what everyone can agree on — the scientists, the teachers, the institutions, if you change ownership of the institutions then you can change ownership of the facts, you can alter the structure of belief, what is agreed upon, that is what they are doing,…the NAP is trying to change what you and I call reality, they want to muddy it like water, if you say one thing is another thing and you say it enough times, then it must be so, and if you keep saying it over and over people accept it as true — this is an old idea, of course, it really is nothing new, but you’re watching it happen in your own time and not in a book.” pp 20-21

Yes, if you get rid of the scientists, the teachers, the protesters, the free press, and the communal institutions, you can take a country into authoritarianism.

And we, in America, are watching it happen in our own time and at Book Chicks in a book.

This story of a middle-aged woman caring for her teenage children, babe in arms, and father with dementia during her country’s descent into fascism exhausted and terrified me. I was shaking and dreading. Hoping and fearing along with Eilish.

Gorgeous prose, horrifying reality. Four stars.