A Millennial-Style Apocalypse
- Julie Heming
- Apr 7, 2019
- 2 min read
A new fungal disease known as Shen Fever begins to spread, and the infected are mindlessly stuck repeating their daily tasks (reading, biting their nails, folding shirts, typing on keyboards) until their physical bodies collapse and decompose, or a survivor puts a bullet through their heads. Lovely.
When the fever spreads to New York City, Candace Chen continues working despite the empty office and infected around her. Recently broken up with her boyfriend, her parents long dead, and a new secret blossoming, she needs the extra money. But New York empties. Eventually, she's one of the only non-infected people left in the city, and she finally, finally decides to leave.
She meets up with another small band of survivors, lead by a man named Bob. The group raids or "stalks" houses to gather food and supplies, making their way towards Chicago, where Bob has a survival building he deems "The Facility."
But the trip isn't easy - anyone in the group can still become infected, and Bob's ideology makes Candace increasingly uneasy. She's trying to figure out what she wants her new life to be like, but to do that, she'll need to carve her own path, away from Bob and the rest of the group.
Moving back and forth between pre- and post-apocalypse, this novel is partially a love-letter to New York City and Candace's hometown of Fuzhou, China. The writing is strongest when it writes about place, capturing the imagery, sounds, and smells, but most importantly, most strikingly, the feeling. But the novel is also about being alone in this modern world, the mind-deadening effect our daily routines can have on us, and being an immigrant and chasing the American dream in a country that will not accept you even if you succeed.
This was an easy read, and I flew through the pages. The slighted, sarcastic, yet sometimes touchingly tender voice sounded familiar, and some passages were beautifully written.
However, if you're looking for a more in-depth imagining of life post-apocalypse, this isn't for you. The treatment of the epidemic is fairly surface-level, and important questions are left unanswered. We never find out, for example, how Candace joins Bob's group of survivors. We never fully understand Shen Fever and how it spreads or activates. We never understand Bob's motives for leading the group or his ideology.
The world in Severance exists only flimsily. It can't stand up under weight. This definitely bothered me, but because of the stylistically strong writing, the humor, and occasional chilling tension, I enjoyed the novel.
8/10 📕
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