The Glass Box

Some of the best speculative fiction starts with an idea that is not far removed from the normal, a simple nudge to reality can lead to many places. In the case of J. Michael Straczynski’s The Glass Box, this place is a psychiatric hospital. The reason for being sent there? New government legislation that says that those who join a protest must be mentally ill to do so and can be cured. Does this sound outrageous to you, or maybe you can imagine it happening if we choose the bad timeline? 

Riley Diaz committed her life early to be an advocate for what she feels is right. Her parents left her with a legacy of peaceful protest, but in future America, even these peaceful protests are deemed illegal. When Riley is sent to a Renewal Centre, she must prove she no longer feels compelled to protest and list her accomplices if she ever wishes to leave. Will the Renewal Centre break Riley or can she work with the other inmates to break the system? 

I do not like to compare art when I can avoid it, but in the world of psychiatric hospital-based thrillers, there is one that really dominates the space and I do not mean Girl, Interrupted. Glass has a lot in common with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, even beyond the peripheral fact they are both based in hospitals for the “mentally ill”. The protagonists are both people who feel they should not be there, willing to fight the system. The problem is that the system is designed to crush people like Riley, and she may end up worse off mentally than she went in. 

To call Glass science fiction is not true, it is speculative fiction leaning towards general fiction. There is only a slight extrapolation from the author to trigger the story. I can imagine a future in which gatherings of more than ten people at a protest is illegal. This change in the law triggers Riley’s story. There is no supernatural The Redemption of Morgan Bright here, just a tale of the near future of real patients trying to rally against an increasingly fascist regime.  

Straczynski achieves a lot of subtle world building in the story through Riley’s struggle, but it is her story. Much of the book is set in only a few rooms of the hospital and a few characters interacting. The thrills are heightened by the danger that Riley finds herself, her belief system could see her incarcerated for longer or made to undergo electroshock therapy. Her struggle may be individual, but as a reader you are made to feel like she is fighting for the rights of everyone on the outside as well as herself. 

I found Glass a hard-hitting, but very readable thriller. It wraps a lot of interesting ideas about the state and politics into an enclosed story of one patient. You can read the book and just be pulled along by Riley’s personality and actions, but you can also choose to ponder on the reasons for her imprisonment. It is these areas that are speculative, science fiction, outlandish. Or is this story an echo of a potential future just months or years away?