Ma, L: Severance

Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine: her work, watching movies with her boyfriend, avoiding thoughts of her recently deceased Chinese immigrant parents. So she barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps the world.

Candace joins a small group of survivors, led by the power-hungry Bob, on their way to 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, Severance is a moving family story, a deadpan satire and a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive.

Ling Ma’s writing has appeared in Granta, Playboy, Chicago Reader, Ninth Letter, Time Out, ACM and elsewhere. A chapter of Severance received the 2015 Graywolf SLS Prize. She lives in Chicago.

‘Ling Ma’s apocalypse glistens with terror, humour, anger and humanity…You will not be able to stop reading this ingeniously constructed and electrifyingly harrowing book.’
Samantha Hunt, author of The Dark Dark

‘A moving meditation on home, belonging and life itself—all rendered in cool yet affecting prose that’s too good not to keep reading.’
Rachel Khong, author of Goodbye, Vitamin