Severance by Ling Ma

Title: Severance

Author: Ling Ma

Published: 2018

Type: Fiction

Pages: 291

Memories beget memories. Shen fever being a disease of remembering, the fevered are trapped indefinitely in their memories. But what is the difference between the fevered and us? Because I remember too, I remember perfectly. My memories replay, unprompted, on repeat. And our days, like theirs, continue in an infinite loop.

In Brief:

In a word: timely. The writing is really powerful yet subtle, somehow manages to be both spooky and humorous. I found the characters somewhat lacking and think it sometimes tried to do too much at once, but still found it compelling and definitely recommend reading it in ~these times~.

Rating: 4.4

Synopsis:

Severance follows the story of Candace Chen, a Chinese-American woman in her late twenties living in New York City (specifically Bushwick). Chen immigrated to America when she was six, and though she once had artistic ambitions, since graduating college she’s worked at the same office job for a publishing company, manufacturing specialty Bibles. She’s lived in the same apartment, and has the same boyfriend. 

At first, Candance hardly notices when Shen Fever emerges first in China, then begins sweeping throughout the world. The fever is apparently a fungal-bourne disease that renders its victims into something like zombies – but instead of eating brains, they’re stuck in a loop, repeating the routines of their everyday life while their bodies waste away. There is no cure. 

Candace keeps going to work, even as the world slowly ends all around her. She moves into her office to spare the commute. She’s one of the last few people living in New York, and spends her time photographing the crumbling city. Eventually, she’s forced to leave, at which point she joins up with a group of survivors headed to Chicago. The head of the group, a former IT specialist turned cult-ish leader named Bob, promises that in Chicago they’ll find a “Facility” that will keep them safe. On their way, the group gathers supplies by raiding houses on “stalks,” praying beforehand and killing any lingering victims of the fever they might find. Tension and resentment grows between Candace and Bob as Candace once again finds herself locked into a life she didn’t choose, but this time she’s desperate to escape. 

Where I’m At:

I think it goes without saying how relevant this book felt to read now – it had been on my list to read for a while, but there came a particular urgency with the spread of COVID-19 and gradual breakdown of Life As We Knew It. 

It’s at the point where my days are blurring together. I wake up, move inches from my bed to my desk, work pretty normal hours. I go on a run or exercise, maybe call friends or family, read, watch something on my computer, go to sleep. And again, again, again. Meanwhile, the news is scary and confusing, people are dying, and the only thing I can really do about it beyond giving my money and calling Congress is just this. Nothing. 

I keep a 5-year daily journal, and look back jealously at what I was doing a year ago: a trip to Austin, midnight showing of Avengers, going out for dinners and drinks with friends. It’s been 48 days since I started working from home.

So this book, with its criticisms of routine and office culture, its vision of a world falling apart without really noticing, feels very real right now. There were some details there were outright eerie: how your perception of the disease depended on what form of media you consume. How unreliable numbers came from China. How Broadway goes on “intermission.” How wearing a mask became more like social signaling versus a preventative measure. How, even in the face of an unfathomable disaster, life monotonously carried on.

In the real world, though we had been watching the news, stocking up on supplies, weighing the possibilities, it still felt like we just woke up one day and we couldn’t do any of the things we normally do. A slow burn, then crashing reality. And then we’ve just sort of carried on, to the best of our abilities. I’m extremely lucky to have a job where I can work remotely and it’s still mostly the same, I still get paid and am not afraid of being laid off. I’m extremely lucky to be healthy, to be able to go out on runs and get groceries. 

But it still deserves to be said: it sucks. 

Getting Into it:

For the most part, I loved the writing of this book. Subtle was perhaps the wrong word – Ma is damning in her criticism of capitalism and office culture, consumerism and the ridicule of routine. Over and over, in telling the story of her past, Candace repeats: ”I got up. I went to work in the morning. I went home in the evening. I repeated the routine.” The parallel to the fevered, who still go to their jobs, set the table, flip through their favorite book, try on clothes, is clear. What makes it more powerful though, is that Ma doesn’t say it. I compare it to Little Fires Everywhere, where the author would often explicitly explain to the reader something like “This character is like this because this thing happened in the past and that’s why they do this thing now.”  Ma makes it obvious, but still lets you connect the dots. 

The structure of the book is particularly instrumental here. It alternates chapters between Candace’s present, fleeing New York with the other survivors, and her past: her family’s immigration to America, her parents’ death, moving to New York, her boyfriend, her job, and finally, the apocalypse. By doing this, Ma allows the reader to directly compare the two realities. In one chapter, Bob forces Candace to shoot a diseased child. In the next, Candace is applying for a job at the publishing company that she doesn’t really want. All throughout, Ma maintains the exact same tone: detached, retrained, dry. Yet the overall effect, as my friend Kelsey put it, is spooky. 

The drawback of this choice in style is that I didn’t feel very much while reading Severance, other than spooked. Candace isn’t a particularly likable character, closed-off and vaguely unhappy. The other characters aren’t well fleshed out, more like broad stereotypes: a hipster, a religious weirdo, a pothead, a girly-girl. The most emotional bit is a chapter about Candace’s mother, struggling to cope with life moving to America, a chapter that stands out jarringly from the rest of the story. 

The only thing I’d really criticize about the book is that I did feel at times that it was trying to do too much at once. It was about the apocalpyse. It was about office culture, capitalism, consumerism. It was an immigrant story, a why-I-left-New-York story. It was a bildungsroman There was some romance. It was about trauma and grief. There was a commentary on religion, even climate change. 

I feel weird criticizing this because I think Ma broadly did all of this well. I especially liked the immigrant story and the subtle ways Candace reveals her deep grief from losing her parents. I especially hated the New York-ness of it (wow it’s almost like New York is a character what a concept) but even have to admit that was done well. It just felt like a lot, became a little relentless within the short (less than 300! Nice!) pages of the book. 

I don’t want to comment on the ending because I really recommend going out and reading this book now. We’re not going to forget ~these times~ anytime soon, but I think they make the book especially poignant, and will give you a lot to think about. Maybe read Circe along the same time for a little escapism though, because the parallels are undeniably a lot.