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Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she's had her fill of uncertainty. She's content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend. So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. The subways screech to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. 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 moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire. Most important, it's a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive.… (more)
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For all the positive things I can say about this novel, I think the reason I'm also ambivalent toward it is due to the unevenness of the book. Perhaps there is some filler where there should have been more character development. I didn't really feel invested in these characters, and some of them were little more than tropes. When dealing with characters who are facing life and death, it's important for a reader to believe in what's at stake. For the most part, I didn't. The purpose of these characters was largely to move the plot forward.
Where the novel succeeds, however, is in its world building and its larger story. The parallels that are drawn between the capitalist world of Candance's past with that of her plague-infested present are brilliant. The pandemic that sweeps the world in Severance causes its victims to repeat menial tasks without thought. This continues until they finally expire. Thus an avid reader may turn the pages of her favorite book without reading a word for days. A taxi driver may drive his same route, even picking up passengers, but all without a thought or care, day and night, until his body just gives out. And that's where this story wonderfully elicits questions of how allegorical this whole story is.
My opinion of this slim novel swayed throughout. I really liked parts of it—thought it was brilliant at times. Other parts were just a bit too unsophisticated. In the end, I guess I feel so-so about it. It certainly didn't help that the final third of this novel came across as rushed and formulaic. This was the part of the story where I felt any decent author of dystopian fiction could've stepped in and done an equally commendable job. It's an ending that should satisfy readers of the genre looking for a piece of action that is familiar, but as a reader looking for something original or thought-provoking, I felt it was a let down.
Severance is an easy read and one that I would recommend to readers of dystopian fiction. Other readers could probably adopt a take-it-or-leave-it attitude toward this one and be fine.
Just this quote:
“The Russian told them an anecdote about the film director Andrei Tarkovsky. Upon seeing Utah for the first time, Tarkovsky remarked than now he knew Americans were vulgar because they filmed westerns in a place that should only serve as a backdrop to films about God.”
But also I was intrigued by how this woman continues to work at her job in New York City as the world crumbles around her.
And the unusual epidemic, in which the “fevered” go through the motions of their daily lives over and over. For instance, a woman sets the table and her family raises their utensils to “eat” then she clears the table and it all begins again. And yet there are subtle differences with each repetition.
There is a kind of coldness to the book and yet it is irresistible and I am drawn to this woman and the cult of sorts she finds herself in.
A strange and intriguing read.
Candace is a young woman living in New York. She shares an apartment with a friend, throwing
Ma writes so engagingly about Candace, a woman who prefers to have things happen to her than to take decisive action. Her job's not great, but it's not bad. Her boyfriend isn't perfect, but he's not terrible. When Shen Fever reaches New York, she keeps going into her job in Manhattan. Once bus service ends, she stays in an empty office and continues to send emails to China, and filing status reports, despite the rapidly diminishing number of people coming in to work. Long after she's the last one working, she finally leaves New York and finds a small group to travel with. The group's leader wants to be some kind of cult leader, but no one really takes him seriously, or at least Candace doesn't.
What made this novel work is that all of it was so interesting. Ma makes Candace's memories of growing up in Salt Lake City and of being generally aimless in New York as fascinating as life in the cult, traveling across the depopulated US, stopping now and then to "go stalking," which is to say, breaking into people's houses and stealing stuff. As the group becomes more restrictive, Candace awakens to the fact that she will have to take decisive action if she wants to survive.
This is a blend of literary fiction and post-apocalyptic story that I think is much more calculated to appeal to the litfic readers than the post-apocalypse fans, but as someone who enjoys both, I found it quite satisfying. It feels like it's reflecting on -- or maybe just plain reflecting -- a lot of the realities of modern life and human nature in a really interesting way.
Those who enjoy novels that move around in time. Those who liked Station Eleven.
In a nutshell:
The fever has taken over the world. Candace has survived it, and is now traveling with other survivors. Through chapters alternating in the past and present, we learn what Candace’s life (and
Worth quoting:
“It made me wistful for the illusion of New York more than for its actuality, after having lived there for five years.”
Why I chose it:
I saw it in a few book stores and kept picking it up. Finally had to go for it.
Review:
This is a situation where I don’t want to give away too much, because I think the less you know, the more interesting the book is. I accidentally glanced at just a bit of one Cannonballer’s review in my feed and while they didn’t spoil anything, I think something they mentioned did take away from my reading of it because I couldn’t get it out of my head. So I suggest that, if you’re at all interested in reading this book, you just pick it up and read it.
The book looks at so many big ideas — capitalism, immigration, survivalism, urban living — but also smaller, relatable intimacies, such as competition at work, relationships (romantic, platonic, familial), daily life choices. Her boyfriend Jonathan starts out as a mildly interesting character, but I found Candace’s evolution of her view of him to be relatable and more interesting that Jonathan himself.
I like the style of going back and forth in time - I’m not sure this book would be as compelling were it told in a straightforward manner. But at the same time, author Ma is a talented writer, able to create a vivid picture without flowery or overly-descriptive language. I have a strong idea of what the manufacturing plant in China looks like, the hotel, Candace’s New York apartments, her office. I did live in New York for many years, so I think that may have increased my enjoyment of the book a bit, but if it were set in another major city I’m sure I would have devoured it all the same (in any case, I started this book on a Wednesday and finished it Thursday evening, and worked both of those days).
Keep it / Pass to a Friend / Donate it / Toss it:
Pass to a Friend. One has already called dibs, in fact.
This book was published in 2018, making the similarities to today quite eerie. It’s a good thing I’m not a conspiracy theorist. A fungal infection out of China called the Shen Fever is sweeping the world. As the fever spreads in the US, the government becomes less forthcoming with the information about the death toll. People are urged to wear masks but not everyone does. Tourists continue to come to New York as the fever spreads. The New York Times prints the names of the dead on its homepage. I could go on.
A person infected with Shen Fever performs the same mundane task over and over until they die. For instance, Candace observes a fevered woman working at an abandoned Juicy Couture store folding sweatpants over and over. She has been there doing that for so long that half her jaw has rotted off.
Candace Chen is one of the last people to leave New York. Before the fever takes over, she works at a publishing company in the Bible division, with basically the same routine every day. She keeps coming into work long after her coworkers have left both their jobs and the city. When she does finally quit, she joins a group of survivors on their way to a place their leader calls The Facility, where they can start a new society.
Candace’s journey with them is only part of her story. She immigrated to the US from China as a child. Growing up the daughter of immigrants has always set her somewhat apart from her friends and coworkers in New York. The book alternates between three timelines – Candace’s present day journey with the group, her recent past in New York before the fever hit and her childhood. There is a lot going on in a fairly slim novel. Fair warning -the ending is not going to be for everyone. I didn’t care for it at first but the more I thought about it, the more I felt it was appropriate. Recommended.
I hated the pregnancy storyline. I also hated the lack of ending.
Strictly worse than Station
Not with a bang but a whimper.” “The Hollow Men” -T.S. Eliot
Severance by Ling Ma is an unusual but elegant combination of immigration story and post-apocalyptic drama. Thematically, it addresses the human desire for belonging that is derailed by mistrust and
Author: Ling Ma
Publication Date: Aug 2018
Genre: Apocalyptic
Score: 3/5 (a generous score)
The apocalyptic book for the millennial generation. A 20 something New Yorker survives a pandemic. She was drifting through life and drifts through the apocalypse. I’m sure there are metaphors
But as someone who usually reads fantasy and science-fiction, I was most disappointed by the portions of the novel that described Candace's trip westward with a band of survivors. This band is led by an authoritarian religious zealot, who uses violence and verbal cajolery to manipulate its members. These sections feel like an underthought, unsubtle caricature compared to the rest of the book. The book's dreamy tone and slow revelation of details don't match the high drama occurring in these chapters. In the scenes in New York and China, Candace's malaise and passive observations feel like an honest depiction of the uncertainty of young adulthood and a developing pandemic, but on the road trip they become annoying and unbelievable character traits. The final fifty pages bring together interesting ideas about routines and memory and humanity, but they also make it clear that Candace's character is an artificial shell for this story and its themes, losing the dynamic, reactive quality she had in earlier chapters. Also,
A reader with a lot of time on their hands who's interested in the themes of the better sections might consider picking this up, but it's not for anyone who cares primarily about tight plot, dynamic characters, or genre elements. I can't see this book gaining much traction beyond readers of trendy literary novels.
Candace Chan of New York, a former Bible book rep, is one of a group of 9 survivors of a fever plague/pandemic. It’s interesting and well written, but I felt there was too much about her ’old’ life and too little about her current life. Especially all of
I saw a lot of review mentioning how funny the book was. That is was not my read at all (I could be wrong, obviously), again, I was more horrified by the slow decay of the world and the progressively crushing solitude of all the characters.
It is not coincidental, of course, that the narrative weaves together a world-ending fever originating in China, affecting first workers in export-oriented industries, including the one where the main character, herself a child of Chinese immigrants, works. There are definite parallels between the barely-known Chinese relatives to the main character and the survivors group she ends up joining.
The kicker, of course, is the writing itself which mimics the behavior of the fevered.
It's weird reading a novel about a pandemic that was written before the covid pandemic. Pandemic novels will never be the same, because it's impossible not to compare the imagined pandemic to the real one. In the novel, people are not nearly so stupid as they were in real life, and there wasn't a racist backlash even though the disease originated in China. Of course, this disease is nothing like covid - it has a very high fatality rate, and the way people die is pretty nightmarish.
But of course, comparing this pandemic to covid is completely missing the point. The point of this book is that the post-apocalyptic world isn't really any different from the pre-apocalyptic world. Before the pandemic, Candace lives her unfulfilling meandering life as a cog in a capitalist machine, where she feels like she has no purpose and nothing to contribute. The disease shuts down people's brains and turns them into zombie-like drones who do the same tasks over and over (they don't eat brains though), just like cogs in a capitalist machine.
The book is rather uneven. Candace is not exactly likeable - her defining character trait is a purposeless ennui that makes her hard to care about. Sometimes the book feels tense and fast-paced, and sometimes it's just tedious office politics. It's not exciting enough to be a thriller, and it has a general light tone that isn't quite comedic, largely because Candace doesn't really take anything seriously.