Severance

(Paperback)

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Description

Maybe it's the end of the world, but not for Candace Chen, a millennial, first-generation American and office drone meandering her way into adulthood in Ling Ma's offbeat, wryly funny, apocalyptic satire, Severance. Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine- her work, watching movies with her boyfriend, avoiding thoughts of her recently deceased Chinese immigrant parents. So she barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps the world. Candace joins a small group of survivors, led by the power-hungry Bob, on their way to the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Severance is a moving family story, a deadpan satire and a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive.

Reviews

Ling Mas apocalypse glistens with terror, humour, anger and humanityYou will not be able to stop reading this ingeniously constructed and electrifyingly harrowing book. * Samantha Hunt, author of The Dark Dark *
A moving meditation on home, belonging and life itselfall rendered in cool yet affecting prose thats too good not to keep reading. * Rachel Khong, author of Goodbye, Vitamin *
My autocorrect keeps putting King Ma instead of Ling Ma, butmaybe thats on the mark: she totally rules. Severance is like nothingelse around: a witty workplace novel and a terrifying plague yarn, animmigrant story and a sort of homecoming, full of Chinese whispersand New York ghosts. * Ed Park, author of Personal Days *
Ling Ma has given us a terrifyingly plausible vision of our collectivefuture, one in which our comforts have become pathology and ourhabits deathand, in her protagonist, a hero who doesnt know if sheshould be seeking salvation or oblivion. And yet, somehow, Severancecould easily be the funniest book of the year. Its a brilliant, deadpannovel of survival, in this world and in the precarious world to come. * J. Robert Lennon, author of Broken River *
This is a biting indictment of late-stage capitalism and a chilling vision of what comes after, but that doesn't mean it's a Marxist screed or a dry Hobbesian thought experiment...Ma also offers lovely meditations on memory and the immigrant experience. Smart, funny, humane, and superbly well-written. * Kirkus Reviews, starred review *
Mas language does so much in this book, and its precision, its purposeful specificity, implicates an entire generation. But what is most remarkable is the gentleness with which Ma describes those working within the capital-S System. What does it mean if a person finds true comfort working as a "cog" in a system they disagree with Is that comfort any less real * Buzzfeed, #1 Summer Read Pick *
Ma's writing is compelling and cogent, perfectly satirising a world that often feels beyond parody. * Nylon *
Embracing the [apocalyptic fiction] genre but somehow transcending it, Ma creates a truly engrossing and believable anti-utopian world[An] extraordinary debut. * Booklist, American Library Association (starred review) *
Mas writing about the jargon of globalised capitalism has a mix of humour and pathos that reminded me a little ofInfinite Jestand a little ofGeorge Saunders; it produced a sense of estrangement from my cosmetics, my clothes, and my iPhone. I finished it feeling sad and sensitive to the garbage all around us that comes at such a high cost to planetary and human welfare. * New Yorker, What Were Reading This Summer *
In this shrewd postapocalyptic debut, Ma imagines the end timesin the world of late capitalism, marked by comforting, debilitatingeffects of nostalgia on its charactersThe novels strength lies inMas accomplished handling of the walking dead conceit to reflecton what constitutes the good life. This is a clever and dextrous debut. * Publishers Weekly *
A smart, searing expos on the perils of consumerism, Googleoverload, and millennial malaiseAn already established audiencewill be eager to discover this work. * Library Journal *
Afierce debut from a writer with seemingly boundless imagination...It's a stunning, audacious book with a fresh take on both office politics and what the apocalypse might bring: This is the way the world ends, Ma seems to be saying, not with a bang but a memo. * NPR *
A clever and dextrous debut. * Publishers Weekly *
In the end,Severanceisnt so much a story about zombies as it is an imaginative critique of capitalism. Underneath Mas deadpan comedy lie shrewd observations of the West and the decadence of our everyday existence. * Paris Review *
Funny, frightening, and touching...Ling Ma manages the impressive trick of delivering a bildungsroman, a survival tale, and satire of late capitalist millennial angst in one book, andSeveranceannounces its author as a supremely talented writer to watch. * Millions Most Anticipated (This Month) *
How do you fit a zombie novel inside an immigrant story inside a coming-of-age tale Ling Maaccomplished this feat in her gripping and original turducken of a novelFascinating. -- Trine Tsouderos * Chicago Tribune *
Its a stunning book. I devouredSeverancein as close to a single sitting as possible...and it shook me on an emotional level that no other apocalyptic novel has reached. * Chicago Review of Books *
Mas engrossing, masterfully written debut transforms the mundane into a landscape of tricky memory, where questions of late-stage capitalism, immigration, displacement and motherhood converge in such a sly build-up as to render the reader completely stunned. * BookPage *
Severanceoperates with severe restraintbut theres a power to the restraint, and an elegance to the understatement. * Vox *
A hilariously searing critique of who we are and how we survive in a modern world...Mas caustic humour and incredibly smart commentary on late capitalism compares our adherence to routine and groupthink to a terminal infection. Her precise language, original voice, and use of all-too-relatable details inform the debuts deadpan depiction of a society teetering on the edge. * Shondaland *
A cracking read, deeply moving and at times hilarious. * Lifted Brow *
Severance is the most gorgeously written novel Ive read all year; when I finished it, I immediately picked it up and read it all over again. * New Republic *
Mas apocalypse is a work of geniuswickedly funnyan extraordinary book. * NZ Listener *
A deadpan meditation on consumerism. * Daily Telegraph *
Ling Mas debut novel tackles countless themes immigration, work culture, family, capitalism, and the confusing aimlessness of your early 20s with a dry wit that keeps the horrific digestible, the repetitive laughable, and the pages turning. * Marie Claire US *
A quirky and addictive read about adulthood, loneliness and humanity. * Bookriot UK *
Laced within its dystopian narrative is an encapsulation of a first-generation immigrants nostalgia for New York...Severance evokes traces of, if not Meghan Daum in her misspent youth, then the essay Goodbye to All That, when a young and equally bemused Joan Didion looks at gleaming kitchens through brownstone windows, considering New York not as a place of residence but as a romantic notion. * New York Times *
[A] slick debutwith impressive evens of tonea deadpan, dystopian takedown of capitalism and globalism. * Mail on Sunday (UK) *
'Puzzling out the truth is just one of the pleasures of reading Severance, as Ma leaves much of the reality ambiguous. It is also a very funny book, skewering metropolitan millennial life and relationships. * A.V Club, Best Books of 2018 *
'Severance is simultaneously daring and restrained...Mas great skill is in making the familiar seem utterly fresh, even as she shows us how deadening our familiar lives can be. * Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books 2018, Vulture *
'Ling Mas debut is the only thing I can think of that Ive recommended to everyone who has asked.I tore through it in nearly one sitting, enthralled by the idea of a post-apocalyptic New York and beyond where the zombies are not Walking Dead extras, but regular people trapped in an infinite loop, performing the mundanities of contemporary existence. * Best Books of 2018, Jezebel *
A book about work that puts the work in the context of globalization, a book that is mordant and sad and full of quicksilver allegories. I loved [it] so much. -- Lydia Kiesling * Best Books of 2018, The Millions *
With exquisite pacing, Ling Ma alternates between Candaces precarious present and her childhood as the daughter of Chinese immigrants, and contemplates the possibility of a future in a lonely, blasted world. Severance is a scathing portrait of a society collapsing under its own ungovernable appetites, as well as a haunting meditation on family inheritance and its loss. * Best Debut Novels 2018, Huffington Post *
'Mas prose is, for the most part, understated and restrained, somewhat in the manner of Kazuo Ishiguro, and particularly his classic The Remains of the Day, from 1989, which Ma has cited as an influence...Ma is at her most deft when depicting...the amputation of the immigrants past, preserved like a phantom limb whose pain is haunted with absence. * New Yorker *
In Severance, Shen Fever is wiping out the worlds population, but the hungers of capitalism, and the fracturing of globalization, is what has insured social death. Its an end times retrofitted to the monotonies of our generation, packaged in mordant millennial pink. -- Doreen St Felix * New Yorker, Best Books of 2018 *
With scathing wit and savage imagination, Ling Mas apocalyptic office novel Severance invites readers to recognize both the humor and dangers of Americas decadent consumerism. In her disconcertingly plausible world, Ma is able to atomize the absurdity of everyday life into something digestible, even downright funny. * Paris Review , Best Books of 2018 *
Alternately gritty and dreamlike, this is an anti-capitalist novel perfectly pitched for these interesting times. * North and South *
'Mas prose is simple and clear, and the narrative catapults us forwards through the book...Consider Severance a neatly wrapped collection of the barely subsumed anxieties we currently live with, written as an entertaining adventure story. * Overland *
Severance is a pandemic-zombie-dystopian-novel, but its also a relatable millennial coming-of-age story and an intelligent critique of exploitative capitalism, mindless consumerism, and the drudgery of bullshit jobs. * Electric Lit *
Severance is the best work of fiction Ive read yet about the millen

Author Bio

Ling Ma's writing has appeared in Granta, Playboy, Chicago Reader, Ninth Letter, Time Out, ACM and elsewhere. A chapter of Severance received the 2015 Graywolf SLS Prize. She lives in Chicago.