The Measure is set in a world where everyone over 22 receives a box with a piece of string that is equivalent to the duration of their life. The novel was published in 2024, so after the COVID pandemic. Like with the pandemic, the anxiety and fear either draws out the best or worst in people.

The Measure follows the lives of eight different characters, mostly New Yorkers, and how their perspectives on their lives change.

  • Nina (a magazine/newspaper editor) and her partner Maura (former musician, now working in publishing) have very different string lengths. Nina’s is long and Maura’s short. Their love story is perhaps the clearest through the novel. They are a solid partnership and weather the storm, with the expected ups and downs.
  • Amie is Nina’s younger sister. She’s a teacher and decides, like some, to not open her box. When she starts writing letters to an anonymous pen pal in a “short-stringer” support group that meets in the evenings in her classroom, we see the supportive yet strained relationships that many are having.
  • Anthony Rollins is a manipulative, long-stringer politician, who is running for president, exposing his short-stringer competitors, and generally making an ass of himself by fear mongering and implementing stringist policies.
  • Rollins’ nephew Jack is a long-string solider who secretly trades strings with his bestie Javier.
  • Javier is a short-stringer who won’t accept the Administration’s limitations on his dreams. He’s going to be a military hero.
  • That leaves Hank (doctor) and Ben (architect) who meet Maura at a short-string support group and become lifelong friends (pun mostly intended).

My favourite part of the novel is a protest movement, #strungtogether. It’s the counter to political divisiveness and promotes compassion and solidarity. The protesters urge their communities to support each other, regardless of their string length, and they create beautiful art that highlights the extraordinary contributions of people who’ve lived short lives, think Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi.

That positive narrative is woven into the stories of the eight main characters and the supporting people in their lives.

As a novel, it’s a great philosophy exercise to think about the measure of your life, how you’d measure it–ideally not just by length but by strength.