Whisper Network by Chandler Baker
Whisper Network by Chandler Baker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I originally read Whisper Network back in 2019, but I realized there are a lot of great books out there that I meant to write a review on; but I never put pen to paper, or maybe more accurately, fingers to keyboard. So here we are.
The book opens with, "If only you had listened to us, none of this would have happened."
Sloane, Ardie, Grace, and Rosalita are all employees of Truviv, Inc.
Ardie - Tax division director at Truviv
Sloane - Senior Vice President of North American Legal Affairs, and Ardie and Grace's boss
Grace - Director of Compliance and new mother
Rosalita - Office custodian at Truviv
Ames- General Counsel and Sloane's boss, soon to be promoted to CEO
When the CEO of Truvive unexpectedly dies, Ames is named as his likely replacement. At the same time, Kathrine, a new hire, seems to be on Ames' radar, and this along with Ames' promotion, puts Sloane, Grace, Ardie, and Rosalita on edge, as they all know Ames' tendency towards sexual harassment or even outright assault.
Despite the content, this book is frequently laugh-out-loud funny. I fell in love with the characters, who are often bitingly witty or sardonic. While I wouldn't put this firmly in the "thriller" genre, there is some mystery, and it is a slow-burning page turner. It is a story almost all women will recognize and identify with in some capacity, as we've all known an Ames whom everyone rug-sweeps for; the kind that you find an excuse to not be alone with, the type that women (hopefully) warn each other about, but still stays in a position of power no matter how lasciviously he grins or how grabby his hands. Chapters are interspersed with excerpts from a court case deposition and interviews.
I am thankful that Baker included Rosalita's character. Though we've been talking lately about harassment and assault in the workplace, women in blue collar jobs are often forgotten about in the conversation, even though these women have less protection and power than women towards the top. Baker makes no bones about that harassment can happen to any woman, whether at the top of the company or at the bottom.
Chandler Baker herself is a corporate attorney and has a toddler. How she managed to write multiple books on top of motherhood and a demanding career, I'll never know. After you finish Whisper Network and decide you need more of this in your life, Baker has two newer books: The Husbands (set to debut on August 3rd, 2021) and Hello, a YA novel coming out on September 7th, 2021.
Favorite quotes from Whisper Network (there are so many, but I forced myself to pare it down to just a few):
“We never understood the tendency to underestimate us, we who had been baptized and delivered through pain, who grinned and bore agonies while managing to draw on wing-tipped eyeliner with a surgically steady hand. We plucked our eyebrows, waxed our upper lips, got razor burn on our crotches, held blades to the cups of our armpits. Shoes tore holes in the skin of our heels and crippled the balls of our feet. We endured labor and childbirth and C-sections, during which doctors literally set our intestines on a table next to our bodies while we were awake. We got acid facials. We punctured our foreheads with Botox and filled our lips and our breasts. We pierced our ears and wore pants that were too tight. We got too much sun. We punished our bodies in spin class. All these tiny sacrifices to make us appear more lithe and ladylike—the female of the species. The weaker sex. Secretly, they toughened our hides, sharpened our edges. We were tougher than we looked. The only difference was that now we were finally letting on.”
I ranted to friends after my recent c-section that there is no way a man would be doing childcare within an hour of a major abdominal surgery, and I really do believe that. Yet there we are, doing skin-to-skin in the golden hour, feeding our babies from breast or bottle, shushing and rocking them to sleep, as if we didn't either just push them out or have them cut out of us.
“We had guilt of every flavor: We had working-mom guilt, childless guilt, guilt because we’d turned down a social obligation, guilt because we’d accepted an invitation we knew we didn’t have time for, guilt for turning away work and for not turning it down when we felt we were already being taken advantage of. We had guilt for asking for more and for not asking for enough, guilt for working from home, guilt for eating a bagel, Catholic guilt and Presbyterian guilt and Jewish guilt, none of which tasted quite the same. We felt guilty if we weren’t feeling guilty enough, so much so that we began to take pride in this ability to function under moral conflict.”
Even guilt for staying home! "How will your daughter ever learn to be independent.. your son will grow up thinking women belong in the home."
“The thing we would articulate, far too late, as it turned out, was that when a building’s burning, no one just whispers, “Fire!” No one sits quietly at their desk, diligently completing their work and checking for typos while the smoke pours in overhead. No one cries for “help” softly, under their breath, so as not to disturb their neighbors. So why did we? Shhh, don’t tell anyone but … Keep this quiet, please, but … We haven’t told anyone else, but … This stays between us, but …”
Women are often criticized for not coming forward with their stories of harassment or assault earlier, but we have been conditioned to not scream for help, to not yell "fire," to assume it is our fault in some way.
“It wasn’t only the warning that kept us safe but our ability to keep that warning quiet. Like secret agents operating behind enemy lines, we couldn’t afford to get caught. And yet we risked it anyway. With voices hushed, we reached out to each other to offer our knowledge. We tried. Because we’d always wanted the best for each of our friends. We wanted her to dump that loser. We wanted her to stop worrying about losing five pounds. We wanted to tell her she looked great in that dress and that she should definitely buy it. We wanted her to crush the interview. We wanted her to text us when she got home. We wanted her to see what we saw: someone smart and brave and funny and worthy of love and success and peace. We wanted to kill whoever got in her way.”
"And then we took it as a compliment when one of the men in the office told us we had balls. So, tell us again how this wasn’t a man’s world."
“We had guilt of every flavor: We had working-mom guilt, childless guilt, guilt because we’d turned down a social obligation, guilt because we’d accepted an invitation we knew we didn’t have time for, guilt for turning away work and for not turning it down when we felt we were already being taken advantage of. We had guilt for asking for more and for not asking for enough, guilt for working from home, guilt for eating a bagel, Catholic guilt and Presbyterian guilt and Jewish guilt, none of which tasted quite the same. We felt guilty if we weren’t feeling guilty enough, so much so that we began to take pride in this ability to function under moral conflict.”
“The thing we would articulate, far too late, as it turned out, was that when a building’s burning, no one just whispers, “Fire!” No one sits quietly at their desk, diligently completing their work and checking for typos while the smoke pours in overhead. No one cries for “help” softly, under their breath, so as not to disturb their neighbors. So why did we? Shhh, don’t tell anyone but … Keep this quiet, please, but … We haven’t told anyone else, but … This stays between us, but …”
Just a few more:
“It wasn’t only the warning that kept us safe but our ability to keep that warning quiet. Like secret agents operating behind enemy lines, we couldn’t afford to get caught. And yet we risked it anyway. With voices hushed, we reached out to each other to offer our knowledge. We tried. Because we’d always wanted the best for each of our friends. We wanted her to dump that loser. We wanted her to stop worrying about losing five pounds. We wanted to tell her she looked great in that dress and that she should definitely buy it. We wanted her to crush the interview. We wanted her to text us when she got home. We wanted her to see what we saw: someone smart and brave and funny and worthy of love and success and peace. We wanted to kill whoever got in her way.”
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