Severance

SEVERANCE

by Ling Ma

 

Award: Kirkus Winner 2018

 

Nominations: Aspen Words Longlist 2019, Dublin Longlist 2020, PEN/Hemingway Finalist 2019

 

Date Read: November 8, 2023

 

In this apocalyptic debut, Ma explores the impact of a spore pandemic on cities, work life and survival culture. This is a stunning novel, with the feeling of a frog being boiled and not realizing it’s screwed until it’s too late.

 

Candace is living the dream, in a sense. She has a decent job with upward potential, living in New York and has a boyfriend she loves. Jonathan, the boyfriend, has decided he wants to drop out and not live in the capitalist rat-race and is moving to Washington. Candace isn’t willing to let her life go to follow him, even though she loves him.

 

She has put in for a promotion that she’s likely to get, and has one other massive complication. She’s pregnant with Jonathan’s baby. Wrestling with whether to tell him or not, she decides not to tell. And then he’s gone. With the spread of the fever, she knows she will never see him again.

 

Candace stays in New York longer than she probably should have. When she eventually leaves, she is found unconscious in the backseat of a taxi she stole to escape. A group of exiles take her in and essentially hold her hostage because they are excited about her baby. A very memorable part of this novel is them taking over a mall and using the stores (l’Occitane, Hot Topic, Old Navy, etc.) as places of residence. 

 

Part of the reason Candace stays is because she signs a contract with her publishing agency to physically man the office while everyone works remote. Feeling like she has a sense of purpose, she continues day in and day out to go to work, eventually moving into the offices so she doesn’t have to commute from Brooklyn. The work and sense of purpose, however, dry up rather quickly as the fever continues to spread and worsen.

 

Knowing she is bringing her child into a precarious situation with the group, she ends up escaping the mall and driving to Chicago to begin again on her own. The last scene of her arriving all alone is scary. She is basically going to deliver her baby with no help. I don’t know if that’s bleak or hopeful.

 

This is an astonishing debut and I was rapt the entire time. It got so that I felt my world were coming to an end, I was that absorbed in this. I would recommend to anyone and everyone.

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