Adult fiction dealing with social justice?
April 22, 2021 2:00 PM Subscribe
I’m looking for novels for adults that deal with any form of activism, protesting, social justice, etc. as part of the plot. Please note that I’m NOT asking for nonfiction—I’ve got that part covered. Any ideas?
I think Cory Doctorow's Little Brother fits here, although it is slightly aimed in the YA rather than "adult" direction.
posted by hanov3r at 2:06 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by hanov3r at 2:06 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
Marge Piercy whote a bunch of very good novels centered around the lives of left-wing activists.
posted by jamjam at 2:11 PM on April 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by jamjam at 2:11 PM on April 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
CL Polk's Kingston cycle, particularly the last book (but present in all of them, and they do need to be read as a set). Several books by Courtney Milan, but the one I can think of for sure is The Suffragette Scandal. KM Szpara's Docile, though I'm not sure I'd exactly recommend it.
posted by wintersweet at 2:13 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by wintersweet at 2:13 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Philip Roth's American Pastoral revolves around the radicalism of the '60s.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 2:29 PM on April 22, 2021
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 2:29 PM on April 22, 2021
The Good Terrorist is a rare novel that I found both very tedious and very compelling. The tedious-ness comes from the tedium of the protagonist's life doing endless boring tasks to get ready for protests and maintain her housing squat etc. It felt very real although it's saterical and rather harsh. It has an insider's harshness about radicalism.
Zodiac is kind of fun and kind of irritating depending on how you feel about Neal Stephenson. A sort of Earth First-esque concept in Boston Harbor. I find him enjoyable until I get overwhelmed by his sexism. This was written early in his career and is shorter than a lot of his other stuff.
The Pushcart War is one of my all time faves about a group of street vendors who rise up against the incursion of large trucks on the streets of New York.
V for Vendetta a classic about revolution against a fascist regime. Contains rape.
Rat Bohemia about the peak of the AIDS crisis in New York has activist stuff in it if I remember right.
Meridian is about the Civil Rights Movement. One of my favorite Alice Walker books.
I haven't gotten around to The Taqwacores yet but I believe there's an activist part (along with punk rock subculture).
I can barely remember The Monkey Wrench Gang but it's about environmental sabotage. I do think it's very dude-centric.
I thought the Hunger Games books were page-turney if not especially sophisticated.
Looking forward to hearing other recommendations!
posted by latkes at 2:31 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Zodiac is kind of fun and kind of irritating depending on how you feel about Neal Stephenson. A sort of Earth First-esque concept in Boston Harbor. I find him enjoyable until I get overwhelmed by his sexism. This was written early in his career and is shorter than a lot of his other stuff.
The Pushcart War is one of my all time faves about a group of street vendors who rise up against the incursion of large trucks on the streets of New York.
V for Vendetta a classic about revolution against a fascist regime. Contains rape.
Rat Bohemia about the peak of the AIDS crisis in New York has activist stuff in it if I remember right.
Meridian is about the Civil Rights Movement. One of my favorite Alice Walker books.
I haven't gotten around to The Taqwacores yet but I believe there's an activist part (along with punk rock subculture).
I can barely remember The Monkey Wrench Gang but it's about environmental sabotage. I do think it's very dude-centric.
I thought the Hunger Games books were page-turney if not especially sophisticated.
Looking forward to hearing other recommendations!
posted by latkes at 2:31 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
(Oops I included a couple books not marketed to adults)
posted by latkes at 2:36 PM on April 22, 2021
posted by latkes at 2:36 PM on April 22, 2021
Meg Wolitzer, The Female Persuasion
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:49 PM on April 22, 2021
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:49 PM on April 22, 2021
For an older example, Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South (1854) is about workers' rights, labor strikes, and more. (Note though that it's also a love story between a rich factory owner and a less rich but still privileged woman.) As I recall a lot of the debates in the novel about who owes what to whom were very reminiscent of the political divide in the US between personal responsibility/bootstrap narratives and mutual responsibility/systemic inequality narratives.
posted by trig at 2:55 PM on April 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by trig at 2:55 PM on April 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole is a romantic thriller that deals with gentrification and displacement. Here's the review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.
posted by Lexica at 3:01 PM on April 22, 2021
posted by Lexica at 3:01 PM on April 22, 2021
This is a significant part of The Overstory, but not at the very beginning, have patience.
posted by momus_window at 3:19 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by momus_window at 3:19 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure whether you're looking for sci-fi or only more literary fiction, but Kim Stanley Robinson tends to have activism and environmental justice themes in his novels. The Mars Trilogy in particular leans pretty heavily into it, especially in the later books. There's also a lot in the Science in the Capital series, which is available as the original trilogy, or shorter omnibus that he published recently called Green Earth (he was able to significantly shorten the original books, as a lot of the climate change he predicted has now come to pass and doesn't need to be explained in the same way, since we have everyday words for it).
posted by duien at 3:24 PM on April 22, 2021
posted by duien at 3:24 PM on April 22, 2021
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
posted by i like crows very much at 3:30 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by i like crows very much at 3:30 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, by Arundhati Roy.
posted by basalganglia at 3:44 PM on April 22, 2021
posted by basalganglia at 3:44 PM on April 22, 2021
The Wallcreeper and Doxology, both by Nell Zink, have characters who are involved in climate change activism.
T.C. Boyle’s A Friend of the Earth is about “eco-terrorists,” and When the Killing’s Done is about environmentalists vs. the National Park Service.
Marge Piercy’s Vida is about a 1970s radical leftist and loosely based on the Weathermen, if memory serves.
posted by scratch at 3:57 PM on April 22, 2021
T.C. Boyle’s A Friend of the Earth is about “eco-terrorists,” and When the Killing’s Done is about environmentalists vs. the National Park Service.
Marge Piercy’s Vida is about a 1970s radical leftist and loosely based on the Weathermen, if memory serves.
posted by scratch at 3:57 PM on April 22, 2021
Go Went Gone is a brilliant novel about the African refugee crisis in Germany. Through his encounters with refugees, the main character gradually moves into activism.
posted by FencingGal at 3:59 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by FencingGal at 3:59 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
NK Jemisin's latest, The City We Became, is an Extremely Good Take on, among other things, people fighting gentrification and white supremacy. The fantasy worldbuilding highlights the message in some very smart ways.
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 4:44 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 4:44 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner. Great book! Art and activism in the 1970s.
posted by frumiousb at 5:11 PM on April 22, 2021
posted by frumiousb at 5:11 PM on April 22, 2021
Caucasia by Danzy Senna addresses the tensions between academics and revolutionaries in the black power movement but is also a great coming of age story about family and identity.
PopCo by Scarlett Thomas gets to lefty corporate sabotage but I don’t want to say more and ruin the plot.
All Over Creation by Ruth Ozeki gets at this through an itinerant group of environmentalist anarchists turning up on a rural working farm.
So Far from God by Ana Castillo includes a community organizing around environmental justice.
And seconding Marge Piercy’s old novels about the new left, especially Vida.
None of these are recent but they’re all good reads!
posted by centrifugal at 5:26 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
PopCo by Scarlett Thomas gets to lefty corporate sabotage but I don’t want to say more and ruin the plot.
All Over Creation by Ruth Ozeki gets at this through an itinerant group of environmentalist anarchists turning up on a rural working farm.
So Far from God by Ana Castillo includes a community organizing around environmental justice.
And seconding Marge Piercy’s old novels about the new left, especially Vida.
None of these are recent but they’re all good reads!
posted by centrifugal at 5:26 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Oh yeah, I almost forgot American Woman by Susan Choi, which is a retelling of the Patty Hearst story from the POV of a Japanese-American activist.
posted by centrifugal at 5:37 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by centrifugal at 5:37 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai includes some AIDS activism.
posted by songs about trains at 6:18 PM on April 22, 2021
posted by songs about trains at 6:18 PM on April 22, 2021
The Cold Millions by Jess Walter is about unions vs. mine owners and their allies in Spokane, Washington state and elsewhere in the Northwest, in the early 1900s. The journalist and organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and other historic figures are characters in the novel.
posted by JonJacky at 7:12 PM on April 22, 2021
posted by JonJacky at 7:12 PM on April 22, 2021
Under the Rainbow by Celia Laskey. A series of interconnected stories about a group of LGBTQ activists who move to a small town identified as "the most homophobic town in the US."
posted by Lorin at 8:34 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Lorin at 8:34 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's maybe not exactly what you're thinking of but I can highly recommend Paul Beatty's brilliant, sardonic, picaresque The Sellout, which involves a ... certain form of protest and had something to say about social justice in general
posted by dis_integration at 8:37 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by dis_integration at 8:37 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
All of Sara Paretsky's VI Warshawski books deal with social justice issues in a very real sense. The crimes the detective investigates are very much about the effects of capitalism on society. People who fall through the cracks are a big focus, the homeless in particular. Also the books are unflinchingly feminist and the issues are dealt with in a complex, subtle, rich way.
posted by Zumbador at 11:50 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Zumbador at 11:50 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities might count in this category, though satirically.
posted by jquinby at 7:35 AM on April 23, 2021
posted by jquinby at 7:35 AM on April 23, 2021
The Smash Up by Ali Benjamin
posted by bookworm4125 at 8:10 AM on April 23, 2021
posted by bookworm4125 at 8:10 AM on April 23, 2021
Oh, Barbara Kingsolver for sure. Social justice is one of her major themes—even if the plot doesn't hinge on it, her characters often have Opinions. Two that come to mind particularly are Flight Behavior, which is about climate change, and Animal Dreams, where an offstage sibling is an activist in 1990 Nicaragua.
posted by the_blizz at 8:52 AM on April 23, 2021
posted by the_blizz at 8:52 AM on April 23, 2021
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posted by Morpeth at 2:03 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]