SEVERANCE: BOOK REVIEW
Like many great American works, Ling Ma’s Severance (2018) has taken on more meaning and cultural relevance with time. That may seem like a strange thing to say about a three-year-old novel, but in this case, the effect is acute. A book about an apocalyptic pandemic, millennial malaise, and the soul-crushing ramifications of international capitalism mirrors much of the 21st century — but it captures the conditions of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic far more specifically. The details of Severance’s apocalypse sometimes align eerily with our own; more often, they differ. Regardless, Ma never fails to capture the creeping dread and surprising stasis of modern life within a crisis. Severance did not predict the pandemic, but it drafted a chilling and personal framework for the way that it would feel for U.S. millennials.
Every summer, I like to break away from fantastical spec fic and read at least one disturbing book. I go for something that will get me thinking or keep me up at night — preferably both — and existentialist horror is my favorite kind. I wasn’t sure if Severance would fit the bill, but it seemed scary for unconventional, close-to-home reasons, so I thought I would give it a shot. Apparently, I was not alone. Severance experienced a full-force resurgence of media attention in 2020 as people early in quarantine sought pandemic-based fiction to cope.
Critics have pointed out the spine-chilling similarities between Ma’s pandemic and the real world’s; pop culture sites have published dozens of think pieces; Ma has given several interviews about it. I’m not very interested in how Severance did or did not “predict” the pandemic. I am, however, interested in all of the inventive ways it examines modern society within the U.S., taking the consumerist allegory of a traditional zombie apocalypse book and updating it for our globalized internet age.
Severance follows Candace Chen, a Bible production manager in a New York City publishing firm, as she experiences the pandemic that destroys the United States. Shen fever, a fungal infection that turns the sick into husks doomed to repeat the mundanities of their lives, afflicts all of the U.S. population except for a handful of anomalous survivors. The book operates on multiple timelines, tracing Candace before, during, and after the pandemic. The main timeline follows her after, when she joins up with a neo-Christian cult of survivors and travels toward their future base, the Facility. A second timeline retells Candace’s time during the pandemic in New York, where she continues with her repetitive job after a breakup and hardly notices the apocalypse happening. Several sections of the book also tell Candace’s family story, detailing their experiences as immigrants from China subsumed into American consumerist culture and Protestantism. Throughout the main timelines, Candace fights to survive and find purpose within the apocalypse, both for herself and for her unborn child.
Severance, like many zombie novels, deals extensively with modern consumerism. Specifically, it critiques the wasteful, dehumanizing aspects of capitalist supply chains. It examines how the system locks workers into repetitive and impersonal jobs, and it looks at the international ethics of consumerist structures. Candace cares nothing for her job at Spectra, a New York publishing company. She manages printing cycles for special edition Bibles, working closely with exploited Chinese suppliers. When the pandemic breaks out in China, those businesses are the first to collapse, and Spectra worries more about disrupted orders than dying workers until the disease reaches the U.S. Pandemic disruptions give Candace some time to pursue her true passion of photojournalism until all infrastructure collapses and she’s forced to leave New York. Through these dynamics, Severance explores the relationships between capitalism, individual fulfillment, and the relative values of human and product. Ma leans into the existentialist horror of these dynamics. Shen fever reveals the deep, moral flaws of the global economic system, and Candace suffers a disconnection from any people or culture as a result of her job and economic situation.
Even after capitalism collapses, Severance’s characters reproduce their old social structures and habits to deeply detrimental effects. The fevered serve as a metaphor for the repetitive nature of consumption-driven lives, as they mindlessly repeat their old jobs and family rituals until they decay into nothing. The cult that Candace joins clings to certain tenets of Christianity and aligns beneath a singular leader who allocates tasks with a suspiciously corporate flavor.
Severance paints a society where all true culture and meaning have vanished. Candace herself feels disconnected from her Chinese heritage and American peers, taking refuge in a deluge of familiar brands and products. Severance has an obsession with products, often spinning long lists of familiar brand names to characterize the New York City blocks and malls that appear within its pages. The only American culture presented is one of consumption and religion, which grind away individuality and suppress other cultures. Candace, our protagonist, is disconnected and adrift.
Despite its cynicism, Severance romanticizes New York City and emphasizes the importance of familial and romantic connections. Candace’s photojournalism project, NY Ghost, allows her to stay connected to her city in decline and do her first meaningful work. She earns no money from the blog, but she informs people of pandemic conditions globally and inspires them to discussion through her artwork. Similarly, Candace’s family history gives her power once she embraces it. She finds a sense of control amidst the apocalypse by burning offerings for her parents. When the Facility imprisons her, a dream-vision of her mother allows her to escape. Candace’s memories of her ex-boyfriend and the father of her child keep her aware of her surroundings and motivated to go on. Through Candace’s passions and interpersonal connections, Severance presents a thesis that is not wholly nihilistic.
I could expand more on the connections between Severance and the real world in 2020, but I feel that they’re more haunting to come across on one’s own within the text. What struck me more than the broad connections were the granular: the closure of Broadway shows, office handouts of N95 masks, and overgrown sidewalks. I found it ironic — and tragic — that the New York Times case counter in the book shut off around 200k to prevent public panic. In the real pandemic, I constantly referred to that case counter — and it ticked up much, much higher.
Within capitalism and following COVID-19, Severance can provide a reader many things: reflection, dark humor, catharsis. Ma’s lyrical writing and emphasis on emotion may appeal to readers outside the post-apocalypse genre; the writing style reflects contemporary and literary fiction more than anything else. Mainly, I would recommend it for its keen eye and insight. Few pieces of fiction capture lived truth as well as this one, and the experience of reading it floored me.