This giveaway is over.
“Mr. Baram’s shop was on the left bank of what used to be the South Platte River. It’d be damned for a few years now. People in the Valve couldn’t draw their drinking water from it for free anymore, nor could they bathe or wash their clothes for free. Which was kind of the point: basic economics. Scarcity equals value.” – page 29, Proxy
On the Valve: The Valve is the slum where Syd and all the other poor of Mountain City live. It’s a favela, a shantytown, and a sea of industrial housing for the people the rich do not have any use for. Before I wrote books for young readers, I spent some time working with war-affected and displaced youth around the world, largely teenagers, and their experiences living in refugee camps and slums shaped a lot of how I imagined the Valve. There are plenty of real world analogs to it, from Kibera outside Nairobi, to Annawadi, the Mumbai slum near the airport described by Katherine Boo in her astonishing book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers. It is a neighborhood where scarcity of resources, overcrowding, and corruption force the residents to compete brutally with each other, occupying their vast creative energies to survive, and play every angle they can to get an edge. This uses up any energy they might have to rise up against the rich and powerful in the Upper City above them. The leaders of society in Proxy—the patrons—understand well how to keep their under-classes at war with each other and keep their own power intact.
There is a saying I read, which was about the war in South Sudan but informed how I built the power structures in the world of Proxy. In Arabic it goes: Aktul al-abid bil abid. It means, I believe: “Kill the slave through the slave.” That is what the pillars of society in Proxy do to keep Syd and his kind down and Syd does his best not to play their games. It is far more dangerous to those in power, in Proxy and in our own world, when the powerless unite to help each other instead of killing each other. Syd’s kindness in Proxy makes him an extremely dangerous person.
Thanks to Alex London for swinging by WORD as part of his Proxy tour! He'll be up next at Good Choice Reading - but until then, I have the pleasure of hosting a giveaway of Proxy!
Knox was born into one of the City's wealthiest families. A Patron, he has everything a boy could possibly want—the latest tech, the coolest clothes, and a Proxy to take all his punishments. When Knox breaks a vase, Syd is beaten. When Knox plays a practical joke, Syd is forced to haul rocks. And when Knox crashes a car, killing one of his friends, Syd is branded and sentenced to death.
Syd is a Proxy. His life is not his own.
Then again, neither is Knox’s. Knox and Syd have more in common than either would guess. So when Knox and Syd realize that the only way to beat the system is to save each other, they flee. Yet Knox’s father is no ordinary Patron, and Syd is no ordinary Proxy. The ensuing cross-country chase will uncover a secret society of rebels, test both boys’ resolve, and shine a blinding light onto a world of those who owe and those who pay. Some debts, it turns out, cannot be repaid.
Quick Recap:
[1] copy of Proxy by Alex London up for grabs
[1] winner in the U.S.
ends July 2
How To Win:
[mandatory] fill out the form below
[mandatory] follow WORD on some sort of medium
[+1] for every additional medium