Cover image of "Hum," which portrays dystopia without the violence

Dystopian novels typically involve high-level drama and violence. People die. Usually lots of them. But dystopia doesn’t have to fit that mold. Helen Phillips ably demonstrates that proposition in her low-key story about one family in a near-future America who become caught up in the gears of a society gone badly wrong. It’s dystopia without the up-front violence. And in Hum, Phillips portrays conditions that might well come to pass if present trends continue. Which makes the picture she paints all the more believable—and all the more disturbing.

A mother of two takes a desperate step

May Webb is among the walking wounded, a casualty of the emergence of the humanoid robots called hums. “Long before hums existed, she was one of many hired to help refine and deepen the communicative abilities of artificial intelligence.” Now she’s out of a job and living with her husband, Jem Clarke, and their two children, eight-year-old Lu and six-year-old Sy. They survive, barely, in a fifth-floor walkup apartment opposite the blinking neon sign of a business open 24/7. Jem gets by working whatever gigs come along, which provide far from enough to support them, and May’s prospects for a new job aren’t great. Which leads May to do something desperate.

Hum by Helen Phillips (2024) 267 pages ★★★★★

Photo of a humanoid robot like the hums that proliferate in this novel about a dystopia without the violence
A humanoid robot that may resemble the “hums” of this novel. Image: No Fluff Jobs

An offer she can’t refuse to lend her face to the system

May’s best friend has told her about a start-up that offers a huge amount of money for volunteers to allow subtle changes to their facial characteristics. Not enough to change much how they’ll look to their family and friends. But enough to fool the ubiquitous facial recognition cameras nobody could avoid. “In exchange for the use of her face she was being given the equivalent of ten months’ worth of her salary at her bread-and-butter job, the solid stabilizing middle-class job that had brought them to the city a decade before.” And that money should sustain the whole family while she and Jem cast about for new and better work opportunities. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as though it’s going to work out that way.

A three-day family getaway from the tedium of life

The problem is advertising. Non-stop, unrelenting advertising. Issuing from every building, every machine, and every hum she encounters in the course of her day. Commercials intrude even in their wooms, the womb-like tents where, like everyone else, May and her family members escape the noise and demands of the outside world—all except the advertising. Because it costs to turn off the ads.

Twenty-four hours a day, commercials flash out enticing personalized offers for things May knows the kids think they need. And great stuff May herself simply can’t resist. Nothing frivolous, you understand. Just such things as food that tastes better than what’s usually available on their budget, or cosmetics to cover up the minor wounds on her face, or games to keep the children occupied—with one major exception: a three-day family vacation in the Botanical Garden. It’s frightfully expensive, but the trip will be an unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime experience of nature that’s only been available to the rich ever since the forests and grasslands all burned away.

And it’s in the Botanical Garden that the family comes face-to-face with the true terror of a system that knows and remembers absolutely everything about every moment in their lives.

About the author

Photo of Helen Phillips, author of this novel about a dystopia without the violence
Helen Phillips. Image: Celeste Sloman – New York Times

Helen Phillips is the author of four novels for adults, one for children, and two collections of short stories. She has won several awards for her writing. Phillips holds a BA from Yale and an MFA from Brooklyn College, where she is now an associate professor of creative writing in the English Department. She was born in 1981 in Colorado and now lives in Brooklyn with her artist and cartoonist husband, their children, and their dog.

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