AUTHOR: Martí Domínguez
PUBLISHER: Edicions Proa
GENRE: Novel
READER’S NAME: María Julia Rossi
DATE: August 31st, 2023

In a long and rich tradition of dystopic fiction, Martí Domínguez composes Mater as a contemporary contribution to the genre, infused with current concerns and focused on motherhood. In the line of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the world is not like the one we know, but one with different rules and human behaviors, many of which are extreme consequences of how today’s world works. In Mater, technological advances and biotech interests have won, and in a seemingly democratic society, individuals are highly controlled and supervised. But, as in both classical novels, there are pariahs in Mater as well. These are individuals who do not conform to new societal policies and procedures, and  live outside the cities, finding their homes in the woods (like characters in Bradbury’s novel). These outcasts are the only actual humans left in the world. The novels tells the progress of the main character’s pregnancy while reconstructing how the world went from how we know it to how it looks like in the future.

Citizens are subject to punishments and fines for all sorts of reasons, some of which are constraints to basic freedoms (as we understand them today in most of the Western world). Books and sports have similar places in the collective imaginary as they have in Bradbury’s imagined dystopic future: although books made of paper are not available anymore, they can be found and they produce deep emotions to those who read them; sports are heavily promoted by the state as a distraction from activities of the mind, and are very successful in society. In this tyrannical world of the cities, it is not allowed for people to procreate on their own, although sexual freedom is openly promoted as a leisurely activity. The main character, Zoe, discovers that she is inexplicably pregnant (since it is technically impossible). Citizens (i. e. non-humans living in the city) are produced through something called genetic improvement and following certain Protocol and, although Zoe was born that way, her pregnancy mysteriously occurred in a conventional or more traditional way (in the novel referred as the antique way). To resist a mandatory abortion, she escapes to the woods with Charles, a workmate, aiming to reach the colonies hiding in the woods (that are not, for her and for many like her, more than a rumor).

In a somehow classical manner, most of the book is a journey: when Zoe and Charles run away, they visit his parents and then Silver, a friend who has a sort of human farm (where humans are created according to environmental needs). Despite his initial friendly welcome, Silver somehow forces them to stay in the farm so he can study this extraordinary conception, given that Zoe is not actually human and her ability to procreate is unusual. Once in the farm, things get ugly quickly and they end up being captive there. With the excuse of helping Zoe and arguing that it would be good for the farm to know more about the process, they do not let her or Charles go (while also using some information about his opinionated father against him). When Silver’s family visits the farm, Zoe expresses her own doubts about her own self, wondering if she is “posthuman”, “transhuman” or what.

Charles and Zoe end up escaping the farm, with the help of Alice, who works there. While Charles is sure about it (mostly because he found out the reason Zoe is pregnant is a bacteria), Zoe has many doubts and is afraid of the future, as well as of the present because she is 26 weeks pregnant by the time they flee. They arrive at a cabin where thy find a dead body; they bury it and enjoy a simple life for a week, during which Charles tell Zoe about his grandfather and his relationship with nature. They decide to leave and continue their uncertain journey, and they find a small town that looks peaceful enough. Parry and Edie, founders of the place, offered them their home to spend the night. It takes them not too long to discover they are religious fanatics. Charles and Parry engage in conversations about forms of eugenics and natural selection, confronting both moral and religious issues about endogamy and genetic manipulations. They slowly reveal a deep and complete opposition to all and any form of development, from the steam machines onwards. Sexism is rampant and they are against all books but the Bible. Zoe is amazed by the colony’s religious beliefs, which are forbidden in the city. Slowly, Zoe embraces some of their faith, hiding it from Charles, who ends up finding out when he discovers her praying. A man who was missing returns to tell the story of an army of cyborgs and robots who killed a crowd in a nearby colony, and somehow the people around them does not trust Charles and Zoe anymore (because the man who returned was supposed to be coming from the same place and he did not recognize them). Charles wants to run away immediately, afraid that the people of the colony will burn them, but Zoe does not feel like accepting that plan, given that she has started having contractions and is afraid of giving birth on her own.

Sensing a general distrust, Zoe is finally convinced that running away again is the best option and they decide to return to the empty cabin. On their way there, they need to escape people from the colony who were chasing them and end up finding a boat. After navigating with little to no control, they experience something like a shipwreck and start a new life at a beach, where they decide to stay to wait for the baby to come. After the 40 weeks are over, one night Zoe’s water breaks. As it happens during the night, all is more complicated due to the lack of natural light. All they know about giving birth comes from books, so they try to remember everything while Charles goes to find wood to keep the fire on to boil pieces of cloth. After a long and painful labor, Venus is born, healthy, and both Zoe and Charles can rest. While they wake up, some sounds alert them about someone being close and, although Zoe is exhausted and can barely move, they get in the boat again and seek the protection of the river. The river takes them to the ocean, and they reach an island. Once there, Zoe begins to successfully breastfeed Zoe and they find a lighthouse. They achieve a peaceful way of life in their precarious way.

While exploring the islands around them, they find Louis, a mysterious cast away, who confesses he wanted to escape the horrors of the city (awful even for a non-human like him) and how nature and natural beauty reconciled him with life. Louis convinces them to leave the islands before the winter comes and head to Liberty County, a utopia-like place where none of the problems of the city or those of the humans exist. One day, from the island, they see a threatening person approach in a boat, and Charles convinces Zoe to run away without him. During that conversation, he explains her that she is the founder of a new lineage: the bacteria that made her pregnant will continue to make her pregnant over and over, unless an antibiotic prevents it. Also, her daughter also has it, and she will reproduce immediately as soon as she is biologically ready and so will their daughters and so on. In that last dialogue, Zoe asks Charles where she would go, and he replies by asking her if anyone knows where they are going.

The two main characters display an interesting gender balance. All along during the novel, Charles has very strong convictions and is very vocal about them. Zoe, on the contrary, shows a true inner journey that reflects the one they are embarked on. Being away from what they know as civilization take Zoe to arrive to some conclusions about things she has never thought about (one example, when reflecting on the use of chemicals upon the body: “La vida de l’e?sser huma? e?s una batalla dia?ria per a dissimular la be?stia que porta a dins”, p. 328—my translation: “The life of a human being is a daily battle to conceal the beast that it carries within”). Many of her reflections and discoveries are deeply connected to the human condition in a broader sense. Charles is what some would call a mansplainer.