Lakewood by Megan Giddings
‘You give of yourself to make your country a better place. You give of yourself to keep us safe.’
These are just some of the haunting words in Megan Gidding’s novel Lakewood. I picked it up thinking I was in for an eerie dystopian read. Granted, while many of the scenes in the novel read as dystopian, what makes it truly horrifying is just how rooted in reality the fictional story is when regarding socio-economic and racial disadvantage and the institutions that prey on these in the name of progress.
Readers are introduced to American college student Lena Johnson following the death of her beloved grandmother. Not only is she struggling to cope with the passing of a loved one, Lena is then confronted with the extent of debt she and her mother are in, forcing her to quit college to obtain stable employment that can pay for her ill mother’s medical treatment. When an offer from the Great Lakes Shipping Company promising high wages, a place to live and full health insurance lands in her mailbox, it seems almost too good to be true, yet Lena can’t resist. She packs up her life and moves to the small town of Lakewood, Michigan. But it isn’t long until Lena learns that Great Lakes isn’t a shipping company, and Lakewood is no ordinary town.
For the reward of an eye-watering amount of money that will set both her and her mother up for life, Lena becomes a human subject in a government research study. Most of the novel sees her undergo inhumane and perversive trials, experiments, and interrogations, all while mysterious pills are tested on her and her peers. Her body and mind are pushed to the limit, and her every move is scrutinized by emotionless scientists and researchers. It’s not long before Lena realizes that she and her fellow participants are all minorities, whereas the researchers overseeing the experiments, and the townspeople of Lakewood, are all blindingly white.
Unease is a permanent fixture throughout the book, not only due to the gruesome experiments that take place, but even more so because Lena feels she has no other choice. Lena repeatedly questions how much more she can take, which always leads her back to thinking about her mother to justify seeing it through for just a few more months.
Were it not for the circumstances Lena finds herself in, it would be heartening to read about a character with so much resolve. But Giddings is deliberate in showing that this isn’t a story about a heroine, nor does she glorify the act of personal sacrifice in the name of love. By placing Lena in such a situation, Giddings makes a critical comment about the bigotry of a society that fails its minorities, to such an extent that even intent isn’t truly their own.
It’s clear that none of the participants would take part in the study if money wasn’t a defining factor of a decent life, or more specific to Lena, the lack of it an obstacle to obtaining the basic human right of healthcare. Hence, in Lakewood, intent isn’t shaped exclusively by the individual – rather, it’s compromised by the racist and classist systems and ideologies that place other options so far out of reach.
“The painkillers took over. Lena rambled about quitting, about pain, about fear, and what it was like to get fucking slapped, and how did she know the bone wasn’t broken. How was it legal to treat people like this. It wasn’t. It wasn’t…The doctor leaned over, still holding onto her cast. She whispered into Lena’s ear, “Before you talk like that to any of us again, think about your mother.”
In a year that has seen exasperation from black communities, sick of inaction and demands for change falling on deaf ears, Lakewood is a relevant and damning piece of literature which highlights how the bodies and minds of black minorities have been mistreated throughout history by many institutions in society, least of all scientific ones.
While the studies that take place in Lakewood do not exist, they echo the treatment of black men who joined the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, and the brutalization that Kames Marion Sims endured when new gynaecological techniques were being tested. Additionally, throughout the novel, the woman leading the study, Dr Lisa, justifies the experiments as she believes they serve a higher purpose. So too was the rhetoric surrounding the use of Henrietta Lack’s cancers cells, one of the most important human cell lines in medical research today, which was derived without consent.
Gidding’s prose is gripping, and she really nails the claustrophobic atmosphere. While the lack of closure may be disappointing to some readers, Lakewood succeeds due to the potency of its message, making Megan Giddings a talented writer to watch.
Lakewood
by Megan Giddings
2020.
Check out our interview with Megan here!
About
Carina Mancinone
Carina is a digital marketer by day and a freelance writer by night, based in Western Australia. Her penchant for stories and writing have been constant in her life and she believes they allow us the means to imagine endless possibilities as we find our way in the world. Carina is equally obsessed with cooking and one day aspires to line her walls, Nigella Lawson style, with cookbooks from around the world.
