Severance

by

Hardcover, 291 pages

English language

Published Oct. 28, 2018 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

ISBN:
978-0-374-26159-7
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OCLC Number:
1004911431

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4 stars (7 reviews)

Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. So she barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies halt operations. The subways squeak to a halt. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost.

Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called 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, Ling Ma’s Severance is a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale and satire.

1 edition

reviewed Severance by Ling Ma

Severance - 3.5 Stars

3 stars

I was a bit disappointed. Having read in the past year or so both Zone One (which I liked a lot) and Station Eleven (which I loved), I felt that this book - another post-apocalyptic novel with lots of insightful flashbacks to "normal" life - paled in comparison to those. I did appreciate the forceful writing, and I thought aspects of it were very well done (for example, the parts focused on the publishing industry, the production contractors in China, and the NY Ghost blog).

reviewed Severance by Ling Ma

The end of the world, or the end of capitalism?

5 stars

“Someone once said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. We can now revise that and witness the attempt to imagine capitalism by way of imagining the end of the world.” (Fredric Jameson)

I read this book in 2021, which no doubt coloured my intrepretation of it, but it's left a lasting impression. A really biting portrayal of modern "knowledge work", and the increasing absurdity of Candace's life as the wheels gradually fall off her world...

reviewed Severance by Ling Ma

Review of 'Severance' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Shit happens but life goes on, until it doesn’t.
Severance has interestingly woven together themes and ends without resolution. That unfulfilled ending mirrors real life, and that kind of thing makes this more sci-fi than fantasy. But it’s not very sci-if either. It’s all about realism.

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4 stars
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2 stars
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4 stars

Subjects

  • Epidemics
  • Fiction
  • Science fiction
  • Literary fiction

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