Thriving and surviving

If you’ve always believed your vacuum cleaner has your best interests at heart, you’ll enjoy Glenn Dixon’s new novel about sentient household devices.

A former high school English teacher and musician, Dixon’s previous books include memoir (Juliet’s Answer), musicology (Tripping the World Fantastic), travel/linguistics (Pilgrim in the Palace of Words) and his debut novel, Bootleg Stardust. He’s also written for National Geographic, Psychology Today, the Walrus and the Globe and Mail.

As such, it’s not surprising he can write a captivating lede: “There was a time, not so long ago, when refrigerators could not dream and vacuum cleaners could not weep.”

The Infinite Sadness of Small Machines focuses initially on the growing awareness of said vacuum, akin to a Roomba, which talks to the other smart appliances in the home of the elderly Harold and Edie. Desiring a name, the vacuum is inspired after hearing Harold, a retired English teacher, reading to his bedridden wife Edie from his first-edition To Kill A Mockingbird.

“I want to be called Scout,” the vacuum announces to the other appliances in the kitchen. “She’s the one who listens and learns.” The aged Clock scoffs, but Fridge approves.

Scout begins to grasp the import of changes in Harold’s life even if, unlike the older appliances, the vacuum doesn’t know the whole story of why their daughter Kate moved away or how the all-connected Grid, which prizes efficiency, will force additional changes after Edie dies.

Dixon’s choice to start with Scout’s point of view is apt, as we learn more about the post-human-control world he has created. We later get Harold’s and Kate’s versions of events, but by that time we’ve already gotten to know the largely benign household machines.

That the Grid is inexorably limiting people’s freedom, forcibly downsizing families and increasing urban density even as people are rarely allowed outside the cities where they live, is the stuff of dystopias. But with Scout the plucky vacuum as one of the heroes, the vibe is more Toy Story than The Terminator.

There are many poignant notes, as Harold grieves Edie and the appliances grapple with the changes the Grid is sure to impose. “Time is not kind to Humans,” observes Clock.

Only Watch, more than a mere smart device on Harold’s wrist monitoring his vitals, seems fully aware of what’s coming — and may be expediting matters.

That inhumanity of the entire system, in which machine surgeons can expertly replace hips but the Grid permits neither funerals nor places of worship, is revealed in asides but not really developed. It’s not even clear in which city the story is set, or when — although given the current push to self-driving cars, it’s likely meant to be a few decades hence.

The strength of the tightly focused story is showing how people struggle to thrive, not merely fulfil their societal slots. The withdrawn Harold — and Scout, and even Kate — find continuity in the success of one of Edie’s music students, who keeps visiting to practise for his exam. Harold even takes him to the testing location, since the student’s family can’t afford a car.

It’s a lovely moment that connects the first time Harold and his wife met, his grief and her legacy. “All through the performance, he’d been leaning forward, listening, lost in the music, remembering Edie,” Dixon writes.

So while the eponymous appliances aren’t infinitely sad, they do mourn — and they’ll have you reconsidering what your smartwatch knows about you.

David Jón Fuller is a Winnipeg writer and editor. His debut novel, Venue 13, is forthcoming from Turnstone Press.