Reviewed by Alyson Baker
Four teenage boys invent a sex game based on rolling dice and doing what the numbers say. They are charged with multiple sexual offences against three teenage girls.
Twelve random jurors are brought together in a trial to work out what actually happened. Only they can say whether crimes have been committed and who should be punished. How does the jury find?
Four teenage boys accused of sexual offending, three teenage girls under the spotlight of public opinion and speculation. We read their stories through trial testimonies, memories, and from the point of view of the twelve jurors tasked with judging the boys.
Dice is a stunning debut novel. It is not an enjoyable read, but it is one that really makes you consider how things could be done better. How women’s voices might be heard and not dismissed as hailing from “the MeToo bandwagon”, how as well as young women being told not to behave in certain ways, boys should be required not to abuse young women!].
Dice is not just the story of the young people, the trial, and the jurors; it is the story of how widespread and intractable sexual predation is. For this reason, I advise that the novel is graphic and disturbing, and anyone who has been the victim of sexual coercion needs to be aware of this before reading.
Allowing us to get to know the jurors is a great literary device; the reader becomes very aware of how thoroughly human, damaged, and distracted the jurors are while trying to pass judgement on others. It makes the reader a bit numbed by the judicial system. How so many bad actions don’t end up in court, and how many societal prejudices do.
The jury is comprised of a cross section of society, a range of socio-economic situations, ages, and levels of confidence. The youngest is also Māori, so he is often asked his opinion – not as his opinion, but as that of all young men, or of all Māori. There are automatic alliances of like people. There are superficial friendships. There are snap judgements of others. And there are the white men assuming they are the only ones who ‘get it’.
The boys have devised a game of dice to determine their actions regarding the girls. There is reference made to The Dice Man; the 1970s novel where a man’s daily actions are determined by dice roll. This ‘abandoning of autonomy’ is just the sanctioning of bad acts, as the players determine the parameters of the game. And there is a parallel with society, where the privileged get to make the rules – and then behave badly.
Throughout Dice is the wearying, endless, infuriating, disregard of women. The effect of the jury’s judgements on the boys’ futures is deemed important, the effect on the girls’ lives of the judgements, or a mistrial, is deemed not relevant to their decisions. The boys’ ‘lesser’ actions are deemed “Boys mucking around”, “Boys being boys”, with no regard to that ‘play’ embedding in the boys a culture of disrespecting women being acceptable. Some of the men even fail to grasp the seriousness of some of the boys’ ‘more serious’ actions.
Dice gives us lots of information about the lives of the jurors – their back stories, their current challenges. Cleverly we read at the beginning of the book about one specific incident in the life of one male juror. He then almost becomes a background character – the reader knowing the questions he would be asking himself as the trial progresses.
Dice is a heart-breaking read. It’s not just the horrible triviality of the Dice Game; it all becomes a game – the performative nature of the court, the anxiety some jurors feel in not understanding the rules, the bargaining and compromising in the jury room. Baylis ends the novel in a harrowing way, clearly showing how far from justice and management of harm the whole process is.
Alyson Baker is a crime-loving former librarian in Nelson. This review first appeared on her blog, which you can check out here.
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