The Measure

“The world had somehow tripped and tumbled through the looking glass, and Amie had read enough novels to recognize that this was the part of the story where nobody knows what the hell was going on, where the characters made rash decisions whose consequences would only be revealed chapters later.”

Amie has decided not to look in her box, a decision she will keep until her death. As such, she has a unique perspective throughout the book. This quote establishes Amie as someone who sees life through the filter of the books she has read, often using them as a way to understand the real world. Here, she uses her knowledge of fictional plots to determine how she should act.

“On Sunday evening, when Maura was at her support group, Nina thought about the man in Verona, and what her coworker had said. It was an unsettling thought that someone was essentially immune to dying until they reached the end of their string—especially strange for those, like Nina, with long ones.”

Throughout the novel, and especially in the opening chapters, Nikki Erlick explores the effect of the short strings from a wide range of perspectives. This quote is the first to consider the impact of a long string. When Nina hears about the bride and groom that jumped off the bridge because the bride had a short string, she understands the groom’s perspective because she is in a similar situation. The issue of mortality is addressed in a different way here, as Nina realizes that it is just as strange, in some ways, that long-stringers cannot die until they reach the end of their string.

“Had the strings arrived in any other century, Maura reasoned, nobody would have dared ask what was inside your box, leaving each household to quietly mourn or celebrate on their own, behind closed doors and drawn curtains. But not now, not in this modern era when feuds and flirtations played out online, when family milestones, professional achievements, and personal tragedies were all on display.”

Maura is reflecting on humanity’s general loss of privacy due to social media, and the way that complete transparency has been normalized. In such an environment, any attempt to retain some privacy is seen as suspect. Maura compares this attitude to past eras when people were seen as having a right to privacy.

“Nina and a few reporters had spent that morning discussing the latest news out of North Korea, where all boxes were not required to be turned over to the government. Anyone who hadn’t yet opened their box was no longer allowed to look inside, and every new box received by those turning twenty-two was to be handed over to officials unopened.”

Because of Nina’s profession as an editor, the reader hears about the larger context of the strings, outside of the private lives of the characters. Here, Erlick uses North Korea’s response to highlight the way an authoritarian government might respond to the strings. Although this contrasts the way the United States has so far responded, it also gives a sense of the sliding scale of response, and how close the US comes to authoritarian impulses with its own response.

“But the part that really created chaos in Nina’s orderly brain was the question that emerged from it all: Did a patient receive less care because her string was short, or was a patient’s string short because she received less care? It felt like the world’s most fucked-up version of the chicken-or-the-egg conundrum.”

Nina is forced to consider the scenario of whether Maura would be given medical care in an emergency, or whether she would be forced to disclose her string length to receive care. This leads her to consider the very origins of the short string and to wonder which is the catalyst and which is the outcome. Here, Erlick addresses the social inequities of the US medical system, applying the strings to another context.

“People began whispering about those with ‘dangerously short string’—a particularly ill-fated community with members in every city and country who found themselves staring into a future whose brevity ensured little to no consequences for their actions and whose rapidly approaching end served as a blunt and brutal reminder that there would be no cosmic rewards for ethical behavior, no late-in-life blessing, no tangible motive to do good.”

Short-stringers are beginning to be seen as inherently unstable and volatile, and opportunistic politicians like Anthony Rollins use this to their advantage. This is the slippery slope down which the government will continue with the STAR Initiative, formalizing this baseless discrimination. Erlick highlights the fact that, however short one’s string is, mortality is actually the case for everyone, and the reader is forced to consider the fact that, without knowledge of one’s life length, one is in the same position as a short-stringer.

“He didn’t want to burden someone else with the news, and he didn’t want pity or charity. He only wanted to stay strong, and he wouldn’t be able to do that if everybody started treating him like a victim.”

After opening his box, Hank is considering whether to tell his friends and loved ones about his short string. His struggle with the decision draws parallels with someone who is diagnosed with a terminal illness. In the same way, he knows that, if he reveals his short string, people will treat him differently, and the rest of his life will be impacted by the knowledge in ways that may in fact impede his own ability to process it.

“But speaking with Anika, staying the words aloud, he actually felt a small sense of relief that one person knew about his string. It was grueling to conceal it from everyone, to keep worrying that something he might say or do would reveal the truth inadvertently.”

Hank has decided to tell Annika, his friend and lover, and he immediately feels relief as a result of this decision. Although he had wanted to keep the secret, he finds the effort to do so “grueling.” Hank’s discovery that sharing his secret is a relief emphasizes the theme of The Impact of Secrets, and after he tells Annika, the loneliness and distance he feels about his short string is alleviated.

“Maybe the boxes are like that, too. Nobody can offer any foolproof explanation for them, so they just end up meaning whatever we want them to mean—whether that’s God or fate or magic. And no matter how long your string is, that, too, can mean whatever you want it to—a license to behave however you want, to stop dieting, to seek revenge, to quit your job, to take a risk, to travel the world.”

Amie continues her anonymous correspondence with Ben, and considers the lack of context or understanding surrounding the boxes. After the boxes arrive, and the strings are deciphered, many people have realigned their priorities, and are changing their lives, using the boxes as a catalyst for change. Erlick never tries to explain the boxes, instead choosing to focus on their social implications in the novel, in essence doing the same thing: using the boxes to fulfill her own need to contain the novel’s meaning.

“Tweets and blog posts were emerging from all corners of the country calling for candidates to reveal their strings, arguing that a short-stringer couldn’t be trusted with the nation’s most important job. Short-stringers are too distracted, they said. Too anxious, too depressed, too volatile.”

After the reality of the strings sinks in, discrimination against short-stringers slowly starts to build. Anthony Rollins brings things to a head when he publicly reveals his own long string, forcing the other candidates to reveal theirs or risk looking deceitful. This is the beginning of Anthony’s ascent in government, and gives him the opening to join the task force and begin building legislation from that discrimination.

“‘They’re forcing us to look at our strings, even if we didn’t want to,’ Jack ranted. ‘And for what? They think they can change fate? As if not sending a short-stringer into combat would somehow save their life? I bet they’re just trying to save themselves.’”

Jack and Javier have found out that, as recent military academy graduates, they will be forced to disclose their strings and will be placed in positions according to their length. Jack immediately pushes back against this, as they have decided not to open their boxes. His reaction will lead to his suggestion that they switch strings, which will ultimately undo short-string discrimination, as Javier, a short-stringer, dies heroically in action, as he would not have been allowed to do under the STAR Initiative.

“‘All those people with the long strings who you thought you saved,’ Ben said, ‘you did save them. Their strings were long because you were meant to save them. Their strings were long because of you.’”

As Hank is dying, Ben offers him solace. When the strings arrived, Hank was plagued with doubt about his purpose as a doctor, as whether someone lives or dies appears now to be completely out of a doctor’s control. However, Ben offers Hank a new way to look at his work—that he was an active part of fulfilling the length of his patients’ strings.

“And Maura heard the stories of short-stringers approaching the end, with no obvious illness, stalked by dread and uncertainty, hesitating before crossing the street, standing far from the subway tracks. It sounded unbelievably stressful. An awful, powerless feeling.”

Here, Maura contemplates her own death, and the powerlessness she feels as it approaches. She has reflected, earlier, that long-stringers have, in addition to a longer life, the hope that death might happen to them naturally and painlessly. Because she knows that she has less than 10 years to live, she understands that it will interrupt her life, perhaps painfully. Her understanding of this is reflected in the stories she has heard about people who, when death is impending, are unable to wait for it, and choose instead to control the process.

“I would also like to speak directly to my brothers and sisters with short strings who are listening tonight. The great American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, ‘It is not the length of life, but the depth of life.’ You don’t need a long lifetime to make an impact on this world. You just need the will to do so.”

Senator Wes Johnson, the short-string presidential candidate who is running against Anthony Rollins, actively takes a public stance for short-stringers. He is one of the first public figures to speak up, and he will later form a foundation that advocates for short-stringers. He is one of the characters who provides Jack with a blueprint of how to actively advocate for short-stringers, rather than fading into the background the way he always prefers to do.

“Normally, Amie relished all the ‘what ifs,’ she dreamt in the conditional mood. But this was one question she couldn’t invite, one box she just couldn’t open. Whether the answer was fifty or ninety, she didn’t want any number in her head. Amie’s refuge was found in her fantasies, in her musings about the future. A number would destroy all of that. It would ground her. She simply had to live her life in oblivion, as if her string were somehow infinite. It was the only way she knew how.”

Amie is the only character who hasn’t opened her box—not because of fear, but because of her fundamental character. Amie has a rich fantasy life, based in her love of literature. As such, she cannot imagine having concrete answers that would limit her imagination and thus her ability to fantasize about her future.

“Nowadays, we want to avoid the idea of death as much as possible. We don’t like to talk about illness, we isolate our dying community members in hospitals and nursing homes, we relegate cemeteries to remote stretches along the highway. I suppose short-stringers are the latest group to suffer from our death-averse ways, and perhaps more than any before.”

Through their correspondence, Amie and Ben discuss some of the larger philosophical issues surrounding the strings. Ben has noticed that his long-string friends have distanced themselves from him, and Amie has placed their behavior into a larger context for him. It isn’t just about the strings, but about American cultural attitudes towards death, and the cultural instinct to render death invisible as a way to avoid its inevitability.

“His gaze landed atop the knotted laces on Javier’s sneakers—two strings tied together, like his and Javi’s would forever be.”

Javier is leaving, and he and Jack are still estranged. Although Jack has tried to make amends, he still doesn’t understand that Javier needs him to confront Anthony’s actions. This metaphor, where he understands his and Javier’s enduring connection, really drives home to Jack that his relationship with Javier is closer than with his own family. This metaphor will come up again with the Strung Together movement.

“‘You saw something wrong, and you didn’t look away,’ said Lea. ‘That’s not nothing.’ Jack remembered what Javi had said during their argument. That it wasn’t just about Anthony’s ego, not anymore. People’s lives were at stake now.”

Jack has stepped in to stop two boys from harassing a Wes Johnson canvasser, and when Lea commends him for it, Jack suddenly realizes what Javier was trying to tell him. He sees that it isn’t enough to take a passive position on short-string discrimination. He understands now, after this scene, that violence is simmering, and Anthony is contributing to it, and it isn’t enough for Jack to just step away from his family—he is going to have to actively push back against it, something that is very difficult for Jack.

“On his way out of the part and back to the subway, Ben passed by the same black-and-white mural as before, but this time he wasn’t afraid to step closer. As he looked at Pandora’s distraught face and the empty box in her hands, he noticed that something had been painted on top of the mural that he hadn’t seen from farther away. It must have been added by a different artist, Ben reasoned, using bright blue paint and a thinner brush. Only a small section of the box’s interior had been visible by the original muralist, but it was here, in a dark corner of the chest, that a second artist had come along and inscribed a single word, Hope.”

Because the strings arrive in boxes, boxes are a motif that runs throughout the book. Greek mythology is also pervasive in the novel, and these two things intertwine here. This is the first point in the novel where the connection to Pandora’s box becomes explicit, rather than implicit, as Ben sees the graffiti in Central Park. However, when he passes it again, he notices that someone has added “Hope” to the artwork. Although the myth of Pandora’s box is well-known, the ending, in which Hope is left in the box after everything else has escaped, is often neglected. This scene ties into the tone of optimism and hope that runs throughout the novel.

“The hashtag #StrungTogether, inspired by her speech, was trending across the globe, being used by people to share stories of different acts of compassion.”

When a South African student gives a speech that goes viral, she offers a fresh perspective on how to see the strings not as a dividing factor, but as a way to come together. This shift in perspective begins a movement that changes the conversation around string length, offering unity rather than division. At this point in the novel, coming soon after Jack’s rebellion at Anthony’s event, the tone becomes more hopeful and optimistic.

“‘God, I wish I could take just one day off,’ Maura said, ‘but I can’t. For my whole life, I’ve had to live every day making sure I don’t seem angry or threatening or undeserving, because that would make Black people look bad, and making sure I don’t seem too sensitive or stupid or meek, because that would make women look bad, and now I can never seem too unstable or emotional or vengeful, because that would make short-stringers look bad. There are no breaks!’”

Maura wants to go to a short-stringer rally, although Nina has planned a full day of wedding errands for them. When Nina protests that she could take a day off from her activism, this is Maura’s response. As a Black woman, Maura has faced this discrimination before, and is frustrated that Nina thinks that she can take a break, when society offers no breaks from the discrimination against which she has to constantly measure her behavior.

“Maybe when Grandpa Cal was alive the Hunters still stood for courage and country, but with Anthony and Katherine now at the helm, it was purely self-interest, winning at all costs. Javier was the one who was actually carrying on the original Hunter legacy, committing his whole life to service, in spite of its unjust brevity.”

Jack is reflecting on the direction of his wealthy, privileged family, and the integrity that he feels has been lost. Throughout the novel, Jack struggles with his relationship with his family, and has already realized that Javier is his true family. However, at this point, he further realizes that not only is Javier his true family, but Javier also more truly represents the values that Jack’s family has, in the past, espoused.

“And as Amie walked down the street to meet him, she heard the melody play in her head, the song that had brought them together. Whatever will be, will be. Some things we just can’t control, she thought. But what about everything else? What about all the choices that we make, each day? Who we choose to be, and how we choose to love? Every choice that was made to look, or never look, inside the box.”

Amie is on her way to meet Ben in Central Park, where he will propose to her. She has just had the realization that the Van Woolsey building, which used to represent her future, no longer does. In her head, she hears “Que Sera, Sera,” a motif that runs throughout the novel, which reinforces her new understanding that although one cannot control the end of one’s life, one can choose what happens in between.