Matt Greene's The Definitions is a transfixing and economical dystopian novel, deftly using its scant pages to speak volumes about language and the construction of identity. The unnamed narrator recounts her experience at the Center, a facility designed to rehabilitate its occupants after a virus and a massive data breach that renders them unknown to themselves and to anyone else.
Though the residents of the Center are adults, they must relearn the most basic of concepts as they await the return of their memories and of their words. When the narrator is introduced to her bunkmate, Maria asks, "Do you snore?" and she realizes, "I didn't know. I wasn't sure what it meant to snore. Nor did I know who the you was she was asking about. (I'm still not sure I do, which is why I'm writing this.)" Their acquisition of language contributes to a developing sense of self, a process that should lead to graduation and their reintegration into life outside the Center. But despite their classes on "Advanced Politeness and Intermediary Subservience" and "History of the Twenty-First Century: A Story of Progress," life outside the Center is obscured, an entirely ambiguous goal.
As she writes, the narrator seems to hold language itself as the goal, and through her voice, Greene assembles a dizzying collection of metaphors, each brilliant and revelatory: "Snow fell in asterisks, a million silent caveats." Despite steady growth, the residents don't seem any closer to recalling who they once were, and some start to question the stories they've been told about how they came to the Center. Chino, a resident who has already tried and failed at the reeducation process once, develops multiple theories: there was no virus; there was a virus, but the Center was responsible for it; they are robots. Most, however, accept their fate without question, just as they accept the lessons they are taught--poems have to rhyme, there are two genders, dogs are mythical creatures.
Some of the students at the Center do graduate; others face another term or perhaps a new scheme where the doctors will "transplant a bespoke package of prefab memories" that lead automatically to reintegration. In the end, The Definition offers no tidy resolution; there is no act of discovery or resistance that reveals the truth of the Center and its residents. But the story is thoroughly satisfying, as controlled and complete as a perfectly crafted sentence. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian
Shelf Talker: A fascinating dystopian novel that takes readers inside the Center, a facility designed to reintegrate its residents into society after a mysterious virus steals their memories and their words.