Description: Winner of the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Fiction An Elle Best Book of 2018 A Marie Claire Best Book of 2018 A Book of the Month Club Selection for December 2018 Shortlisted for the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Award New York Magazine Approval Matrix, "Highbrow Brilliant" An Indie Next Great Reads Selection A Southern Living Best New Book of Summer 2018 A Millions Most Anticipated Book of 2018 An Alma Favorite Book for Fall A Buzzfeed Summer Reading Pick A Nylon Best Book of Summer 2018 A Vulture Best Book of the Summer A Chicago Magazine Summer Reading Pick A Library Journal Summer Fall Best Debut Novel An April Magazine Most Anticipated Book of 2018 A BookBub Laugh-Out-Loud Book of 2018 A Library Journal Debut With Credentials A Bookish Summer Must-Read Fiction A Refinery29 Best New Book of August 2018 A Greenlight Bookstore Pick in Brooklyn Paper " Severance is the best work of fiction I''ve read yet about the millennial condition--the alienation and cruelty that comes with being a functional person under advanced global capitalism, and the compromised pleasures and irreducibly personal meaning to be found in claiming some stability in a terrible world. I love how, in this novel, doom is inevitable, and yet it comes so slowly you might not even notice it. Ling Ma has written one of my favorite novels of the year." --Jia Tolentino, New Yorker staff writer "A satirical spin on the end times--kind of like The Office meets The Leftovers." - Estelle Tang, Elle "[A] standout debut. Satiric and playful--as well as scary . . . Ling Ma is an assured and inventive storyteller [and her novel] reflects on the nature of human identity and how much the repetitive tasks we perform come to define who we are. . . . A sardonic wake-up call." -- Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, National Public Radio "Ma''s writing about the jargon of globalized capitalism has a mix of humor and pathos that reminded me a little of Infinite Jest and a little of George Saunders." --Emily Witt, The New Yorker " Severance is the most gorgeously written novel I''ve read all year; when I finished it, I immediately picked it up and read it all over again." --Jane Hu, The New Republic "How do you fit a zombie novel inside an immigrant story inside a coming-of-age tale? Ling Ma . . . accomplished this feat in her gripping and original turducken of a novel . . . Fascinating." --Trine Tsouderos, The Chicago Tribune "Tense and elegant, Ma''s writing here masterfully treads the line between genre fiction and literature. Part bildungsroman, part horror flick, Severance thrillingly morphs into a novel about self-worth, about the kinds of value we place on our own lives." -- Larissa Pham, The Nation "Re-invents the office satire and delivers a hilariously searing critique of who we are and how we survive in a modern world. Ma''s caustic humor and incredibly smart commentary on late capitalism compares our adherence to routine and groupthink to a terminal infection. Her precise language, original voice, and use of all-too-relatable details inform the debut''s deadpan depiction of a society teetering on the edge." -- Lauren Sarazen, Shondaland "Ling Ma''s Severance . . . sneaks up on you from all sides: it''s an affecting portrayal of loss, a precise fictional evocation of group dynamics, and a sharp character study of its protagonist, Candace Chen. It also features one of the most hauntingly plausible end-of-the-world scenarios I''ve encountered in recent fiction, one which folds in enough hints of the real to be particularly unsettling . . . A monumentally unnerving novel." --Tobias Carroll, Tor.com "Ling Ma delivers a fascinating coming-of-age novel, one full of millennial culture, post-apocalyptic adventures, and, perhaps most exciting of all, a zombie-like populace . . . Severance wonderfully demonstrates how the lifestyles we lead now can have a great impact on our future . . . it''s all done with a pleasingly light touch, despite the story being heavy with death and addressing the pressing issues of our times." --M. M. Silva, Zyzzyva "Shocking and ferocious . . . a fierce debut from a writer with seemingly boundless imagination. . . a wicked satire of consumerism and work culture . . . It''s a stunning, audacious book with a fresh take on both office politics and what the apocalypse might bring: This is the way the world ends, Ma seems to be saying, not with a bang but a memo." -- Michael Schaub, NPR.org "A suspenseful adventure that doubles as a sly critique of late capitalism." -- Boris Kachka, Vulture , "8 New Books You Should Read This Summer" "Funny, frightening, and touching.... Ling Ma manages the impressive trick of delivering a bildungsroman, a survival tale, and satire of late capitalist millennial angst in one book, and Severance announces its author as a supremely talented writer to watch." -- The Millions "If satirist Gary Shteyngart wrote his version of 2015 end-of-world breakout Station Eleven , it would be this compulsively readable book." -- Mind Body Green "A deeply unsettling millennial joyride toward the end of days." --Crime Time Podcast "Ling Ma''s debut novel tackles countless themes--immigration, work culture, family, capitalism, and the confusing aimlessness of your early 20s--with a dry wit that keeps the horrific digestible, the repetitive laughable, and the pages turning." --Marie Claire "Astounding . . . Ma''s engrossing, masterfully written debut transforms the mundane into a landscape of tricky memory, where questions of late-stage capitalism, immigration, displacement and motherhood converge in such a sly build-up as to render the reader completely stunned." -- BookPage "A brilliantly unsettling dystopian novel following a young woman who somehow escapes a fever epidemic and joins a cult-like group of fellow survivors." -- Bust "Ma''s writing is compelling and cogent, perfectly satirizing a world that often feels beyond parody." -- Nylon "Ma''s language does so much in this book, and its precision, its purposeful specificity, implicates an entire generation. But what is most remarkable is the gentleness with which Ma describes those working within the capital-S System. What does it mean if a person finds true comfort working as a ''cog'' in a system they disagree with? Is that comfort any less real?" -- Buzzfeed "An apocalypse novel that could be happening right now. It''s funny except when it''s horrifying; it''s horrifying except when it''s oddly comforting. That ambivalent tonal mixture is just one piece of what makes Ma''s writing so unique and captivating. " -- Jonathan Woollen, Politics and Prose Bookstore "What Ma accomplishes with her fever-stricken world is what sets Severance apart. Rather than take the end of days as a chance for the usual pontifications on societal collapse--most seemingly ignorant that we built society from nothing the first time, and we would certainly do it again--Ma uses the disaster trope for interrogation on a scale small enough to lacerate." -- B. David Zarley, Paste "A satiric vision that takes in late capitalism, the immigrant experience, and the anomie of early adulthood." -- Library of America " Severance meets and exceeds the promise of [its] exciting description. In many ways, Severance is a novel of ideas--it artfully blends/bends genre, it boldly indicts global capitalism, consumerism, and materialism--but every one of its intellectual aims is deeply grounded in the richly felt experiences of the narrator. As a reader, this novel made me dizzy with fear for our world, today, and at the same time, it made me worry about the well-being of the compelling Candace Chen and her companions. And it made me laugh. It made me laugh a whole lot." -- Joseph Scapellato, Electric Lit "For readers who love their literary fiction with a dash of apocalypse, this one''s for you." -- Bookish " Severance shares as much with Then We Came To The End , Joshua Ferris'' meditation on the failure of an advertising agency, as it does with The Walking Dead ; Ma plays with voice, alternating between the first-person singular and plural to show how easily an individual comes to identify as part of a collective and how hard it is to have that group fall apart. But, like 28 Days Later , it uses the end of the world to examine what is really important . . . If zombie stories are about the terrible power of the mob, Severance asks what kind of life is left to anyone who tries to stand against it." --Samantha Nelson, A.V. Club "Takes the milieu of the film Frances Ha and mixes in a subdued zombie apocalypse. . . A clever and funny novel that depicts modern urban ennui and a speculative post-apocalyptic world equally well, while using its central contagion as a metaphor to critique late capitalism, globalization, and nostalgia." --Matt Stowe, Brooklyn Paper "Ma is satiric about the workplace, in a way that''s less snobbish than Nell Zink but just as funn

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