“Whisper Network” by Chandler Baker

NIGHTSTANDS & COFFEE TABLES

REVIEW BY MEREDITH MCKINNIE

“How did we know when behavior was inappropriate? We just did. Any woman over the age of fourteen probably did. Believe it or not, we didn’t want to be offended.”

The debut adult novel by Baker sizzles with sharp wit, intriguing narrative plot points, and timely commentary about the workplace for women in America. Having experienced the difficult climb up the corporate ladder, Chandler Baker sought to meld a bit of her own experience at the age of 24, with countless stories of women in her position. Instead of telling her own tale, or theirs, she melded the lives of five fictional characters, some on their way up, conditioned to question the other’s success, suspect of their own choices and accomplishments, and what or what does not constitute harassment.
The five characters: Sloane, Grace, Ardie, Katherine, and Rosalita, are all working at Truviv, Inc. when their boss, soon to be named CEO Ames, jumps to his death from the high-rise building where they all work. Sloane, Grace, and Ardie are seasoned attorneys at the corporation; Katherine is a newly hired attorney with a checkered past at her last firm, and Rosalita is the night-worker accustomed to cleaning their offices and wondering about the lives of women with more opportunities than she ever had. The narrative unfolds delicately, balancing each woman’s experience, backstory, and deposition with attorneys after a handful of them file suit against the company for ignoring complaints against Ames, shortly before his untimely death. This book is about the shame women put on themselves for being preyed upon and the shame they put on each other for not speaking up sooner. It is about ambition, pride, self-preservation, and the reality of working while also being a woman.
Baker writes with a sharpness that feels like it’s cutting to the core of who we are and what we are willing to accept. As women, we read this knowing the truth behind our own experiences, and yet doubting the truth of others. We are conditioned to keep quiet and groomed to speak out. We know the safety of staying out of the limelight of conspiracy and battle the urge to fight against what we know in our core is wrong. It’s hard to read this novel without some experience resonating, thinking that has happened to me too, but I wouldn’t react that way, I wouldn’t go that far. We judge ourselves by the choices we made and choices we insist we would never make. As readers, we inevitably judge these women, and then resent the fact that they are being judged. It makes us question what we know to be true, what we know we have felt, and what we’ve allowed to persist with our silence.
The novel is timely, in that women are finding their voices, refusing to stay silent when they feel the product of injustice. It is also timely, in a time when so many have the courage to speak out, so many of us refuse to believe them. This novel is not so much about women versus men, as much as it is about what is more convenient to believe and why.