Most important, it's a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive. Should she escape from her rescuers?Ī 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. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. The book is narrated by Candace Chen, a young woman from a family of Chinese immigrants in the United States who finds herself in the middle of a pandemic that mutates most of mankind into zombies. They're traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. Despite being a novel, Ling Ma’s Severance (2018) clearly belongs to this intellectual tradition. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost.Ĭandace won't be able to make it on her own forever, though. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. 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. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she's had her fill of uncertainty. Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine.
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