The pandemic may function as a conflict in Severance, but, more importantly, it works to identify the real antagonist. Ma pondered what the world would look like if our globalized economy served as the medium for a civilization-altering global pandemic, and we are living in one answer to it. By indicating that the illness travels by cargo, Ma establishes today’s global capitalist economy as the culprit. In fact, the population adapts to the outbreak well they mask up, social-distance, and sanitize their spaces. As a fungal infection, we know the illness is traveling by global trade rather than person to person. The sick mindlessly follow their routines, oblivious to their condition. The Shen Fever, however, ends with a fatal loss of consciousness. The illness in Ma’s work also originated in a Chinese economic center (Shenzhen rather than Wuhan) and features a respiratory illness chillingly similar to Covid-19 plus the resulting global upheaval. The piece explores more common instances as well, such as breakups, grief, and immigration, not to mention a global pandemic, which became ubiquitously relatable just a year after the novel was first published, eerily enough, in 2018. Candance Chen’s life is full of sudden cutoffs and transitions outside of the office as well, including the end of society itself. The book’s title is a clever reference to the sudden end of our protagonist’s career as well as a theme of the entire work. In the same way that it seamlessly merges genres, Severance manages to maintain a tart sense of humor while facing the absurdities of living through an age of planned obsolescence as well as its ensuing demise.

In each scenario, our protagonist has to figure out how to survive and find meaning in a world that is overcome by routine, leaving its citizens brain-dead at work and unaware that they’re dying. In her debut novel, Ling Ma contemplates whether a world plagued by global capitalism is that different from one plagued by zombies. Severance is a zombie apocalypse tale, a workplace comedy, and a classic coming-of-age story all in one.

Ling ma new book