There is the premise of the book: a post-apocalyptic New York City full of the fevered who are doomed to repeat their everyday routines and daily tasks like zombies until they waste away and die; the protagonist, a young Chinese-American woman who joins a ragtag group of survivors headed to a facility near Chicago. And then there are the stomach-dropping, mindboggling scenes of horror, and the general feeling of unease or straight-out nausea that you feel reflected in the recognition of these portrayals of the hamster wheel of late capitalism.
— Bonnie
The apocalypse begins in 2011, but maybe we've been living through it for longer. The Shen Fever pandemic turns people into zombies doomed to repeat their daily tasks til they die = a subtle distinction from our current lives, Ling Ma argues. Severance is a eulogy (read: love letter) for half-loved lives and half-lived selves. Protagonist Candace straddles identities in an indifferent America, a Chinese family navigating the jabs of displacement, a New York that isn't so much sanitized as its hostilities are morphed, an information economy that produces fraught global connections between people who are skilled, but who among us are survive-an-apocalypse skilled? Ling Ma revives '90s global-consumerist satire and, detouring it through messy North Brooklyn parties and romance, collides it with Contagion. Grab a facemask and dive in.
— Gleb
“Candace Chen is a first-generation Chinese millennial immigrant who tries to make a life in New York City by succumbing to the role of the office drone who helps create cheap bibles. But when Shen Fever—a plague that causes its victims to perform a rote task until death—hits, only a few survive, including Candace. She soon finds herself in a cult-like band of other survivors heading to the Midwest while also trying to come to terms with her past and the unknowns of her future. With dark humor, sharp intelligence, and compassion, Ling Ma has written a well-constructed, biting satire of capitalism and a moving glimpse into the roles of memory, place, and identity in a life.”
— Kelsey Westenberg, The Dial Bookshop, Chicago, IL