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Review: Ling Ma - Severance (2018)
This book was a lot. The story is relatively short and straightforward, but the protagonist's commentaries on everything that's happening is layered on THICK.
I really enjoyed this book, and I would recommend it. I did a quick Reddit search and saw that some people were disappointed with the ending. I can see why it was disappointing, since it isn't too "definitive," not something you would expect of a zombie/pandemic story. I considered this book more of an introspective piece, and so while I get the disappointment, I wasn't let down.
Spoilers.
Story
The story followed our protagonist Candace Chen through two timelines, pre-pandemic and post-pandemic.
Before the pandemic hit, she lived in New York and worked at a publishing company. Both her parents had already died, so she basically had nothing to ground her.
After the pandemic, she'd stayed in New York as long as she could, but eventually left, and joined a group of survivors, who showed cult-like characteristics. Candace eventually escaped them to go to Chicago.
As you can see, the story was really quite simple. It was the themes and imagery that were explored very deeply, so I will talk about those below.
Writing
The writing style was very simple, but I think that helped to emphasize one of the major themes in this book, which was cycles. By using short sentences, it was easy to recognize patterns in the writing. It was easier to notice repeated sentence structures when the sentences being repeated were shorter.
Characters
Candace Chen
Candace was our main character. She was the child of immigrants, working at Spectra. I'll admit that finding Candace easy to relate to was one of the reasons that this book spoke to me.
Candace was a very neutral person for the most part. By that I mean that she was rather apathetic to a lot of things, which was perhaps why the emotions in this book felt even more pronounced, because as the reader, I was so aware of what she appeared not to be feeling. And yet her character was complex. I am really finding it difficult where to start with what kind of person Candace was.
Candace told us that she was very well behaved as a child, because her mother was good at setting itineraries for the day, so she would know what to expect. When her parents went to the states, she was left with her grandmother, who did not follow this "schedule making" approach, and so Candace apparently became a noisy child. She admitted to us that she only stopped having her tantrums in her late teens.
I felt that Candace had a fairly neutral view of her mother. At times, I think she felt deep sympathy for her, and at times it felt she was rolling her eyes at her mother. This is something that I think many daughters can relate to. I think the sympathy came when Candace was thinking about the early years, how her parents struggled to establish themselves in the States. While her mother and father butted heads, I think she acknowledged that they both had very strong reasons for standing by their ideas. The eye-rolling stuff was typical "my mom is embarrassing" stuff, but I think it slowly turned into apathy, especially towards the end of her mother's life, when she had Alzheimer's, and her words didn't really make sense. Candace would just say yes to everything her mother said to placate her, but there was nothing else she could say.
Candace had always felt awe for New York City. I guess she was technically one of those starry-eyed youths who aimed to make it big in New York. In a way, she did, just not in the way that she would've expected. She hustled in a job that was a far cry from what she would've found interesting. By the time she moved to New York, she was an orphan, so she really had nothing to live for but herself and her dream, so she could afford to be selfish and a little hedonistic, which was interesting.
In addition to being apathetic, Candace was overall just rather detached. From her family, from her culture, from her roots. She'd grown in up in Utah and I don't think she ever returned. None of the Americans she speaks to in the book are of Chinese descent. And since her parents died, she had no connection back to China except for her cousin Bingbing who she would very occasionally text.
Now that I think about it, I feel that Candace thinks deeply about things but also not at all. This entire book was very introspective, the way she would dig back deep into her memories. But at the same time, there was very little that moved her. Disastrous things would happen, and Candace would go back to her routine. This was because Candace found comfort in routine, and I guess it also helped to protect her from thoughts she would otherwise not want to think.
With regards to the survivor group, I think that Candace always felt like an outsider. She was the newest member, as well as the only Asian. I thought it was interesting how when the members had to recite their full names, Candace was the only one without a middle name. She probably had a Chinese name, but had probably dropped it for understandable reasons. I think that to some degree, Candace longed to fit in, like she wanted to fit in with the Art Girls at Spectra. And with both groups, I think that Candace realized that she couldn't fit in and that it was better to strike out on her own.
I don't think her escaping the group was anything deep. Clearly Bob imprisoning her showed that he was a controlling man and no one would want to live with that. Candace had also lived for a while without the group, so she probably wasn't feeling scared that she wouldn't be able to survive without the group.
So if I were to sum up Candace, I would say that she was a woman who was alone in the world, and she stuck to cycles as a source of comfort.
At the end of the book, Candace drove to Chicago, where she got out and started walking. Some people theorized that Candace had become fevered at this point, and that she was just trying really hard to break her cycle, which is ironic, because staying in cycles was how she managed to survive this long (for her emotional well being).
Yang Ruifang (Mom)
Ruifang was Candace's mom. Like all daughters, Candace probably psychoanalyzed her mom quite a bit. She was an accountant back in China, but when she moved to the US, I don't think she started working again.
Initially, she had wanted to return to China, because that was where all her friends were, where she had a career. Here, in the States, she was very reliant on her husband because he was the one with the job. They had got into fights over this. Though Candace herself had once pleaded her family to return to China, during these fights, she would side with her dad, hoping to pacify her mother. That one scene in which Candace described such a fight between her parents really spoke to me. In those moments, the harmony and unity of the family took precedence over everything. Candace and her dad just wanted their mom to not be angry at them anymore, to not want to leave, and Candace was willing to help her dad with that.
Candace didn't really describe her mother to us too much afterwards, until she had already contracted Alzheimer's. Candace told us that her mother would say basically nonsense, and Candace would just respond. In a way, I guess her mother was like a fevered, like a zombie, saying things that she would've said in a past time, but did not make sense now. After all, Candace had theorized that Shen Fever was triggered by memories, and the things that her mother was saying was also things that would've made sense in the past.
Candace's mother appeared to her in her dreams/hallucinations when she was trying to plan an escape from the facility. She basically gave her courage, and I think she reminded Candace that being a mother was an important job, that you had to do all sorts of things you didn't want for the good of your child. Her mother also told her that after Candace escaped, she wouldn't see her for a long time, though I wouldn't say that was a sure thing. As long as Candace was in trouble, I think she would conjure up her mother for courage and advice and most importantly, comfort.
Candace's mother was flawed for sure, but she was her mother.
Jonathan
Jonathan was Candace's ex-boyfriend. Jonathan was like, the stereotype of a rich guy who wanted to be anti-capitalist. I think he said he was a writer, but he basically didn't have a full time job, and he could probably only afford that lifestyle if he had the backing of his parents. They broke up because Jonathan wanted to quit New York and join his friend on a yacht, which was very idealistic, and yes, also very extravagant.
Jonathan said that he hadn't asked Candace to come with him because he knew that she would say no, and she agreed to herself that she would have.
At the base of it all, Jonathan and Candace came from very different backgrounds. Jonathan was very clearly privileged, and he could change his mind at the drop of a hat, whereas Candace could only rely on herself, and had to stay in a cycle of going to work to support herself. Perhaps Jonathan represented the fact that privilege meant being allowed to break out of a cycle whenever you wanted.
Candace was pregnant with Jonathan's baby, but she had no intention of finding him again. She'd returned to Chicago because Jonathan oftened talked about it, but she assumed that he might've already died. For her, not going back to Jonathan was her new beginning.
Steven Reitman
Steven was a guy that Candace had a casual sexual relationship with, and had introduced her to the job at Spectra, where his brother was the CEO. Steven showed up at the party that Candace and her roommate Jane had thrown, the "Orientalist" shark fin soup party.
Steven never responded to any of Candace's messages, and yet when they met up again, he would always gush about how much he loved her. Steven also represented privilege in that he could afford to ignore Candace and resume that cycle of having sex whenever he wanted. It was always on his terms and not on Candace's.
Blythe
Blythe was Candace's coworker. Originally, she was Candace's senior in the bible department. Blythe showed Candace the ropes, and she was very good at it. Later on, Blythe was transferred to the art department, which was basically where all the popular girls were at. It was a clique.
The difference between Candace and Blythe was so stark. As I read the book, I imagined Blythe to be one of those classically pretty blonde girls, the kind who studied literature at university or something like that. As a person of Asian descent growing up in the Anglosphere, I had never once thought that I ever had a CHANCE of becoming one of the most popular girls in the school. It was just never an option. At times I did wish I was more popular, but I think for Candace here, it actually felt like an attainable goal. She just needed a transfer into the department. And she was already on their radar. Blythe knew her, and Blythe and Lane had invited her to their hangouts too. Even when the pandemic hit, Candace was looking out for that transfer. When Michael called her into his office, she had thought it would have been about the transfer, but it had actually been about the contract where only a few people would be left in the physical office.
After she took on the contract, however, I think Candace's enthusiasm for joining the Art Girls went down. For one, a transfer was not possible. All the upper management just weren't around anymore. And I think the other thing was that as business wound down, it was easy to see that the glitz and glamour of the Art Girls was no longer there. When they don't have work, they are all the same. And we saw that Candace didn't align herself with them anymore. When Blythe asked her to come with her to Connecticut, she turned it down. Like Eddie the taxi driver who had returned to New York after having gone to the Northeast, I think Candace knew that she just wouldn't fit in with the people there.
Lane
I wanted to briefly mention Lane. Lane was an art girl, maybe THE art girl. Her neighbour had become fevered, but when questioned, she said that she didn't know anything, because they were "only" neighbours.
Of course, that was a ridiculous thing to say, but nowadays, we barely know our own neighbours too, right? I think Lane represented the fact that if you want to become someone, truly embody them, then you have to cut yourself off from the world. She could only become an art girl by focusing on herself, her career, her image, etc.
Candace was only able to move to New York City after he mother had been moved into hospice care. She was only able to hustle so hard because she had no family waiting for her. It's cold, isn't it?
Bob
Bob was the leader of the survivor group that had found Candace. I first got weird vibes from him near the beginning of the book, when I realized that he was deep into religion. That is never a good thing, especially for an isolated group.
Later on, he was shown to be rather authoritarian. He insisted that everybody do their part, which is not a problem, but just the way he acted made it clear that he was the head and was not to be questioned.
He became bolder when they arrived at the facility, which was his home base, in a way. I thought it shattered his image a bit when Candace realized that perhaps they had only gone to the big box mall because Bob was a part owner, that maybe this was just him stroking his own ego, showing off "his" property.
Bob imprisoned Adam and Candace after they had gone on a "stalk" on their own, which resulted in Janelle and Ashley dying. Adam had to stay in the mall, and Candace was trapped in a room. The wording that Bob used made it clear that he controlled them. He said that being able to go out and walk around was a privilege, and that she had to earn it, which is insane, because who died and made him boss?
Anyway, it was very easy to see through Bob, that he was just a guy thirty for power.
I totally did not expect him to get fevered, but the part when Candace beat the shit out of him was very satisfying. Not only would he not fight back, but Candace was able to beat and punch him and see the effects of it. This is going to make me sound like a psychopath, but sometimes when you want to hurt out of anger, it's not the hurting, it's the seeing the other in hurt that is satisfying.
In any case, Candace had to get out of the mall as soon as possible in case the others of the group ran up to her, and she escaped Bob.
Themes
Cycles
Cycles was the biggest theme in this book, both the perpetuation and breaking of cycles. It was incorporated in so many ways.
Is being in a cycle living or dying? Cycles are often associated with dying. If you give in to the grind and work a 9 to 5 job, you're seen as lifeless. And yet, life is a literal cycle. We expend energy, then rest to regain energy, and the cycle continues.
So what about the fevered? Are they dead? Technically, they are animated. They are in a cycle of doing things. And they don't stop until they're shot. But at the same time, those who are fevered are considered beyond help, never to return.
So let's look at the question from the other way. Is breaking a cycle life or death? Candace's parents left China to start a new life. Candace moved to New York in hopes of striking out on her own. Jonathan moved away from New York to live on a yacht with his friend. They broke the cycle in hopes that they could have a future they wanted. As I mentioned above in the sections for Jonathan and Steven, it seemed like being allowed to break free of a cycle was more of a privilege.
But in real life, if we break free of cycles, that means death, right? If we stop eating or breathing or resting, we literally die. Jonathan's office job changed the benefits and severance pay policies and it died super quick. So what about those times when breaking a cycle leads to death?
My theory is that death or the general breaking of cycles isn't always bad, because it can lead to rebirth. After the fall of society due to the pandemic, a new society will be built. There's no saying whether it will be good or bad, but there will be one ("Life...finds a way.") It was painful for Candace and her parents to leave their homes, but they did it in hopes that they would get a new lease on life.
Now, let's talk about why cycles get a bad rap. Jonathan had been writing a book about generations that lived in the same town. I don't remember whether he had an opinion on the matter, but seeing as how he moved away from his home to Chicago, I'm going to say that he didn't like that. Candace also moved away from her family and never returned to them. This is my personal opinion, but capitalistic society requires constant change. There always needs to be something newer and bigger and better, which is why it is so unsustainable. How can something always be improved? Some things are fine just the way they are. For example, how the heck do you improve a spoon? It's perfect the way it is.
For Candace, cycles were both good and bad. I'll start with the bad. When she broke up with Jonathan, she had to refrain from returning home, because she'd probably become aware of how Jonathan wasn't around anymore, and she would miss him. Instead, she went out partying with the Art Girls, which she never does. So in this case, she had to break free of an unhealthy cycle. In addition, as I mentioned, some people theorized that Candace had become fevered herself at the end, and she was trying to break free of that cycle of whatever she was going to do through her willpower.
In addition, the cycles shown in capitalism were seen in a very evil light. For example, when the gemstone supplier in China shut down, it was very freaky how everybody just went around looking for another gemstone supplier. Everybody was "just doing their jobs," even though the workers in the China were dying.
However, it was made clear that Candace also sought comfort in routines. As mentioned, when she was a child, her mother would recite an itinerary, and it would give her peace because she always knew what was coming up. When the pandemic hit, she kept going to work, because at that point, she had nothing to live for (her parents were gone). This was the one way that the capitalist dream helped her, because even when everyone was fleeing home, she was thinking about closing deals and such. Other habits that kept her on track included updating NY Ghost, praying, etc.)
Memories
Candace had a theory that nostalgia triggered the Shen Fever. Ashley didn't become fevered until she went home. This is a very direct comparison to the fact that memories throw us back into old habits. For example, if someone is the baby of the family, they will always be the baby of the family as long as they return.
As I mentioned before, Alzheimer's seemed a bit like Shen Fever in that Candace's mom was talking about things that she used to say to Candace when she was still lucid. Now, they didn't make sense, but they did once, and she is reciting them, as a symptom or maybe as comfort.
At one point, Candace said that perhaps her mother's memories triggered her own memories. I interpret this to mean that someone recalling their memories about an event will prompt me to recall my own memories about the same event. Interesting, because we could have totally different memories about the same thing. That one thing could prompt both of us to be stuck in our different loops.
I just had a thought about whether Candace had contracted Shen Fever. She thought she'd never been to Chicago, and she thought that all of her memories of Chicago were from Jonathan telling her about it. When she got there, she remembered that she had been to Chicago before, with her parents when she was young. Was it that memory that prompted her to become fevered? I don't actually believe super strongly that Candace became fevered at the end, it's just very interesting to think about.
Capitalism
Like many people, Candace participates in the capitalism even though she doesn't agree with it. What can she do? It's required for survival, especially since she's on her own now.
Candace said that her parents just wanted her to be a useful person. This does indeed sound like a rather Eastern Confucian value, very community-oriented. And Candace fulfilled that role. She was a great member of Spectra, getting deals done and producing great works.
So what about Capitalism is to dislike? It's the breaking of cycles. As I mentioned, capitalism always aims for bigger and better, but sometimes, that's just not possible. The thing about bibles, which Candace produces, is that they barely change. The text doesn't change, it's just how it's packaged. So maybe that's why Candace was able to thrive so long in her role. The innovation hadn't sucked out her soul.
And as mentioned, Jonathan's company had gone through drastic changes in taking away benefits and such that workers relied on, which prompted the company to close very soon.
And yet, work culture can be good. Candace's job kept her alive and protected and motivated (until it didn't). It just needs to be combined with a society/community-focused approach instead of an individualistic approach in order to be healthy.
I'm not going to go into a deeper dive of capitalism because this is only one part of the book, and this is a hot enough topic that I think most people would be able to interpret the capitalistic aspects of this book in a way that makes sense to themselves.
Culture
There wasn't as big of a focus on culture as I would've thought, but that's alright, it was enough for me.
I'll admit the "Orientalist party" left a bad taste in my mouth. Presumably Candace was the only Asian at the party because no one knew how to play Mahjong and they all looked to her for help to which she was like "just because I'm Asian doesn't mean I know how to play."
But that party set the tone for the rest of the book, in terms of Candace's experiences with culture. I think mostly everybody she spoke to in New York was not Chinese. The first time in the book she'd spoken to someone who was Chinese other than family was when she went to China to tour the printing factories. What was so...different about that experience was that she was the only person she knew who could have experienced that sort of interaction. Balthasar tried to make small talk with her in Mandarin, which she understood. She wasn't even super confident in her Mandarin, but she could cross that bridge, and nobody, not even Blythe, who was there with her and had done this trip many times, could say that she could go to China and be treated as Chinese. I don't think that it was like, a life-changing moment, but we saw that Balthasar and Candace maintained a good working relationship, and culture helped her bridge that.
In the modern political climate, the Sinophobia is strong. This book was relatively recent, from 2018, but it didn't really go in depth into Sinophobia and whether that changed during the pandemic. That's fine. I can imagine it would've been a topic that no one would have wanted to write about, and even if someone did write about it, no one could have expected that Sinophobia would've escalated to how it has today.
Occasionally, Candace did immerse herself in her culture when in the States, going to Chinatown to get food. She emphasized that she stayed in the Hokkien parts because the Cantonese parts were a little too tourist-y lol. I can sympathize with that, as a Cantonese myself.
Immigration and Fitting in
In addition to Candace's encounters with Chinese culture, there were commentaries on immigration in general.
Candace's desire to be an Art Girl seemed to me to be a comparison to immigrants wanting to fit in, but knowing they never will. Part of this is literal, as I'm sure the Art Girls were probably all white. But it can be read figuratively as well.
Eddie, the taxi driver, was a Hispanic man. He told Candace that New York was the city of immigrants, and that was why he preferred New York to the place in Connecticut where he'd been with a commune. I totally understand what he means. For a period of time in my life, I dreamed of living in a small town, but now I know I could never. I need to be near multiculturalism. My own ethnic culture, but multiculturalism itself is also so much more comforting and terrifying than...small town North America.
When Candace and Blythe went shopping in Hong Kong, Candace made a very interesting observation. She said that there was such an elaborate gradient between real and fake products in Hong Kong, which is true, but the idea of real and fake being a gradient is very interesting, because I see it both as healthy and dangerous.
It's healthy in the way that it's less polarizing. You don't have to fit in the "real" or "fake" category, sometimes you're a bit of both, to varying degrees. People nowadays are so obsessed with labels. You're either this or that. You're either pure and innocent or evil and cancelled. People need to understand that life is a spectrum.
However, the idea of a spectrum can also be dangerous if it literally is a spectrum with only two sides. You shouldn't be forced to define yourself according to a certain scale. For example, some people view heterosexuality and homosexuality as a spectrum, you're either more sexually attracted to women or more sexually attracted to men. But what about the people who just doesn't experience sexual attraction? Why do asexual people have to define themselves with that scale when they're not sexually attracted to people that way? This isn't a perfect example, but I hope you get I'm going for. Another example may be majors at university. Perhaps people are judged by whether they are a science student, engineering, humanities, etc. But what about people who are not academically inclined? What if they are hands-on people, doing apprenticeships in woodworking, plumbing, etc? They are not less valid.
So spectrums are good, but don't be limited by them either.
I wanted to make another point about fitting in. Candace talked about how mole-removing surgery was a thing that her mom was into. But she noted how even after the moles were removed, there were white spots, which indicated that there had been a mark there. She was still marked in the places she desired to be unmarked. And it gave me the impression that Candace was saying that even if you tried your best to fit in, to pare yourself down to be the same as other people, the fact that you did will still stick out.
The end
As important as cycles are, so are the breaking of cycles.
Originally, Candace wanted to do a project on declining cities. New York in particular was a city that was always being gentrified.
But as I mentioned above, the end doesn't really mean the end sometimes. Sometimes it means repurposing.
Wikipedia told me that Ling Ma wrote this book while she was on severance pay, which I guess was the inspiration for the title, Severance. Severance itself also refers to breaking something off, so I guess it's safe to say I was not wrong that breaking cycles was important to this book.
Religion
Religion is so cyclical. As mentioned, the bible is already written, nothing new is being added to the canon. Every year, Christians celebrate the same holidays. In some religions, life is a constant cycle of life and death and rebirth, until one reaches enlightenment.
Perhaps religion is humans' way of rationalizing their cycles that keep them alive and keep them going.
When Candace's parents arrived in the States, the Chinese community was over at the church, and so religion sort of became a backdrop to Candace's life. I don't think she was very religious, but sometimes she would pray, and she wasn't averse to religion.
Bob of course as a cult leader tried to use religion to control other people. Just as how religion helps people rationalize the cycles in their lives, he tried to use religion to make the members of the group feel content with their roles, to keep them there.
Dreams
Are dreams an end? A means to an end. Dreams are what keep people going.
Candace believed in the myth of New York, which was why she spent so long in New York without becoming disenchanted with it. Her dream of earning money and working to the top kept her in the grind.
Candace's hallucination about her mom was also what encouraged her to finally escape from the facility.
In this book we see instances where dreams both keep people in cycles, and keep allow them to break cycles. That being said, that is a very idealistic way of looking at things. We can't just say you can stay in a cycle or break out of a cycle as long as you dream of it.
Candace was stuck in the cycle of work because she needed it to survive. So she thought up of a dream for herself to keep her going. I imagine that many people who work long hours perhaps think of providing their family as a goal to keep them going.
Overall
I really enjoyed this book. It was totally different from what I expected, rather grim and heavy, but I loved this tone. I would definitely recommend it.
I really enjoyed this book, and I would recommend it. I did a quick Reddit search and saw that some people were disappointed with the ending. I can see why it was disappointing, since it isn't too "definitive," not something you would expect of a zombie/pandemic story. I considered this book more of an introspective piece, and so while I get the disappointment, I wasn't let down.
Spoilers.
Story
The story followed our protagonist Candace Chen through two timelines, pre-pandemic and post-pandemic.
Before the pandemic hit, she lived in New York and worked at a publishing company. Both her parents had already died, so she basically had nothing to ground her.
After the pandemic, she'd stayed in New York as long as she could, but eventually left, and joined a group of survivors, who showed cult-like characteristics. Candace eventually escaped them to go to Chicago.
As you can see, the story was really quite simple. It was the themes and imagery that were explored very deeply, so I will talk about those below.
Writing
The writing style was very simple, but I think that helped to emphasize one of the major themes in this book, which was cycles. By using short sentences, it was easy to recognize patterns in the writing. It was easier to notice repeated sentence structures when the sentences being repeated were shorter.
Characters
Candace Chen
Candace was our main character. She was the child of immigrants, working at Spectra. I'll admit that finding Candace easy to relate to was one of the reasons that this book spoke to me.
Candace was a very neutral person for the most part. By that I mean that she was rather apathetic to a lot of things, which was perhaps why the emotions in this book felt even more pronounced, because as the reader, I was so aware of what she appeared not to be feeling. And yet her character was complex. I am really finding it difficult where to start with what kind of person Candace was.
Candace told us that she was very well behaved as a child, because her mother was good at setting itineraries for the day, so she would know what to expect. When her parents went to the states, she was left with her grandmother, who did not follow this "schedule making" approach, and so Candace apparently became a noisy child. She admitted to us that she only stopped having her tantrums in her late teens.
I felt that Candace had a fairly neutral view of her mother. At times, I think she felt deep sympathy for her, and at times it felt she was rolling her eyes at her mother. This is something that I think many daughters can relate to. I think the sympathy came when Candace was thinking about the early years, how her parents struggled to establish themselves in the States. While her mother and father butted heads, I think she acknowledged that they both had very strong reasons for standing by their ideas. The eye-rolling stuff was typical "my mom is embarrassing" stuff, but I think it slowly turned into apathy, especially towards the end of her mother's life, when she had Alzheimer's, and her words didn't really make sense. Candace would just say yes to everything her mother said to placate her, but there was nothing else she could say.
Candace had always felt awe for New York City. I guess she was technically one of those starry-eyed youths who aimed to make it big in New York. In a way, she did, just not in the way that she would've expected. She hustled in a job that was a far cry from what she would've found interesting. By the time she moved to New York, she was an orphan, so she really had nothing to live for but herself and her dream, so she could afford to be selfish and a little hedonistic, which was interesting.
In addition to being apathetic, Candace was overall just rather detached. From her family, from her culture, from her roots. She'd grown in up in Utah and I don't think she ever returned. None of the Americans she speaks to in the book are of Chinese descent. And since her parents died, she had no connection back to China except for her cousin Bingbing who she would very occasionally text.
Now that I think about it, I feel that Candace thinks deeply about things but also not at all. This entire book was very introspective, the way she would dig back deep into her memories. But at the same time, there was very little that moved her. Disastrous things would happen, and Candace would go back to her routine. This was because Candace found comfort in routine, and I guess it also helped to protect her from thoughts she would otherwise not want to think.
With regards to the survivor group, I think that Candace always felt like an outsider. She was the newest member, as well as the only Asian. I thought it was interesting how when the members had to recite their full names, Candace was the only one without a middle name. She probably had a Chinese name, but had probably dropped it for understandable reasons. I think that to some degree, Candace longed to fit in, like she wanted to fit in with the Art Girls at Spectra. And with both groups, I think that Candace realized that she couldn't fit in and that it was better to strike out on her own.
I don't think her escaping the group was anything deep. Clearly Bob imprisoning her showed that he was a controlling man and no one would want to live with that. Candace had also lived for a while without the group, so she probably wasn't feeling scared that she wouldn't be able to survive without the group.
So if I were to sum up Candace, I would say that she was a woman who was alone in the world, and she stuck to cycles as a source of comfort.
At the end of the book, Candace drove to Chicago, where she got out and started walking. Some people theorized that Candace had become fevered at this point, and that she was just trying really hard to break her cycle, which is ironic, because staying in cycles was how she managed to survive this long (for her emotional well being).
Yang Ruifang (Mom)
Ruifang was Candace's mom. Like all daughters, Candace probably psychoanalyzed her mom quite a bit. She was an accountant back in China, but when she moved to the US, I don't think she started working again.
Initially, she had wanted to return to China, because that was where all her friends were, where she had a career. Here, in the States, she was very reliant on her husband because he was the one with the job. They had got into fights over this. Though Candace herself had once pleaded her family to return to China, during these fights, she would side with her dad, hoping to pacify her mother. That one scene in which Candace described such a fight between her parents really spoke to me. In those moments, the harmony and unity of the family took precedence over everything. Candace and her dad just wanted their mom to not be angry at them anymore, to not want to leave, and Candace was willing to help her dad with that.
Candace didn't really describe her mother to us too much afterwards, until she had already contracted Alzheimer's. Candace told us that her mother would say basically nonsense, and Candace would just respond. In a way, I guess her mother was like a fevered, like a zombie, saying things that she would've said in a past time, but did not make sense now. After all, Candace had theorized that Shen Fever was triggered by memories, and the things that her mother was saying was also things that would've made sense in the past.
Candace's mother appeared to her in her dreams/hallucinations when she was trying to plan an escape from the facility. She basically gave her courage, and I think she reminded Candace that being a mother was an important job, that you had to do all sorts of things you didn't want for the good of your child. Her mother also told her that after Candace escaped, she wouldn't see her for a long time, though I wouldn't say that was a sure thing. As long as Candace was in trouble, I think she would conjure up her mother for courage and advice and most importantly, comfort.
Candace's mother was flawed for sure, but she was her mother.
Jonathan
Jonathan was Candace's ex-boyfriend. Jonathan was like, the stereotype of a rich guy who wanted to be anti-capitalist. I think he said he was a writer, but he basically didn't have a full time job, and he could probably only afford that lifestyle if he had the backing of his parents. They broke up because Jonathan wanted to quit New York and join his friend on a yacht, which was very idealistic, and yes, also very extravagant.
Jonathan said that he hadn't asked Candace to come with him because he knew that she would say no, and she agreed to herself that she would have.
At the base of it all, Jonathan and Candace came from very different backgrounds. Jonathan was very clearly privileged, and he could change his mind at the drop of a hat, whereas Candace could only rely on herself, and had to stay in a cycle of going to work to support herself. Perhaps Jonathan represented the fact that privilege meant being allowed to break out of a cycle whenever you wanted.
Candace was pregnant with Jonathan's baby, but she had no intention of finding him again. She'd returned to Chicago because Jonathan oftened talked about it, but she assumed that he might've already died. For her, not going back to Jonathan was her new beginning.
Steven Reitman
Steven was a guy that Candace had a casual sexual relationship with, and had introduced her to the job at Spectra, where his brother was the CEO. Steven showed up at the party that Candace and her roommate Jane had thrown, the "Orientalist" shark fin soup party.
Steven never responded to any of Candace's messages, and yet when they met up again, he would always gush about how much he loved her. Steven also represented privilege in that he could afford to ignore Candace and resume that cycle of having sex whenever he wanted. It was always on his terms and not on Candace's.
Blythe
Blythe was Candace's coworker. Originally, she was Candace's senior in the bible department. Blythe showed Candace the ropes, and she was very good at it. Later on, Blythe was transferred to the art department, which was basically where all the popular girls were at. It was a clique.
The difference between Candace and Blythe was so stark. As I read the book, I imagined Blythe to be one of those classically pretty blonde girls, the kind who studied literature at university or something like that. As a person of Asian descent growing up in the Anglosphere, I had never once thought that I ever had a CHANCE of becoming one of the most popular girls in the school. It was just never an option. At times I did wish I was more popular, but I think for Candace here, it actually felt like an attainable goal. She just needed a transfer into the department. And she was already on their radar. Blythe knew her, and Blythe and Lane had invited her to their hangouts too. Even when the pandemic hit, Candace was looking out for that transfer. When Michael called her into his office, she had thought it would have been about the transfer, but it had actually been about the contract where only a few people would be left in the physical office.
After she took on the contract, however, I think Candace's enthusiasm for joining the Art Girls went down. For one, a transfer was not possible. All the upper management just weren't around anymore. And I think the other thing was that as business wound down, it was easy to see that the glitz and glamour of the Art Girls was no longer there. When they don't have work, they are all the same. And we saw that Candace didn't align herself with them anymore. When Blythe asked her to come with her to Connecticut, she turned it down. Like Eddie the taxi driver who had returned to New York after having gone to the Northeast, I think Candace knew that she just wouldn't fit in with the people there.
Lane
I wanted to briefly mention Lane. Lane was an art girl, maybe THE art girl. Her neighbour had become fevered, but when questioned, she said that she didn't know anything, because they were "only" neighbours.
Of course, that was a ridiculous thing to say, but nowadays, we barely know our own neighbours too, right? I think Lane represented the fact that if you want to become someone, truly embody them, then you have to cut yourself off from the world. She could only become an art girl by focusing on herself, her career, her image, etc.
Candace was only able to move to New York City after he mother had been moved into hospice care. She was only able to hustle so hard because she had no family waiting for her. It's cold, isn't it?
Bob
Bob was the leader of the survivor group that had found Candace. I first got weird vibes from him near the beginning of the book, when I realized that he was deep into religion. That is never a good thing, especially for an isolated group.
Later on, he was shown to be rather authoritarian. He insisted that everybody do their part, which is not a problem, but just the way he acted made it clear that he was the head and was not to be questioned.
He became bolder when they arrived at the facility, which was his home base, in a way. I thought it shattered his image a bit when Candace realized that perhaps they had only gone to the big box mall because Bob was a part owner, that maybe this was just him stroking his own ego, showing off "his" property.
Bob imprisoned Adam and Candace after they had gone on a "stalk" on their own, which resulted in Janelle and Ashley dying. Adam had to stay in the mall, and Candace was trapped in a room. The wording that Bob used made it clear that he controlled them. He said that being able to go out and walk around was a privilege, and that she had to earn it, which is insane, because who died and made him boss?
Anyway, it was very easy to see through Bob, that he was just a guy thirty for power.
I totally did not expect him to get fevered, but the part when Candace beat the shit out of him was very satisfying. Not only would he not fight back, but Candace was able to beat and punch him and see the effects of it. This is going to make me sound like a psychopath, but sometimes when you want to hurt out of anger, it's not the hurting, it's the seeing the other in hurt that is satisfying.
In any case, Candace had to get out of the mall as soon as possible in case the others of the group ran up to her, and she escaped Bob.
Themes
Cycles
Cycles was the biggest theme in this book, both the perpetuation and breaking of cycles. It was incorporated in so many ways.
Is being in a cycle living or dying? Cycles are often associated with dying. If you give in to the grind and work a 9 to 5 job, you're seen as lifeless. And yet, life is a literal cycle. We expend energy, then rest to regain energy, and the cycle continues.
So what about the fevered? Are they dead? Technically, they are animated. They are in a cycle of doing things. And they don't stop until they're shot. But at the same time, those who are fevered are considered beyond help, never to return.
So let's look at the question from the other way. Is breaking a cycle life or death? Candace's parents left China to start a new life. Candace moved to New York in hopes of striking out on her own. Jonathan moved away from New York to live on a yacht with his friend. They broke the cycle in hopes that they could have a future they wanted. As I mentioned above in the sections for Jonathan and Steven, it seemed like being allowed to break free of a cycle was more of a privilege.
But in real life, if we break free of cycles, that means death, right? If we stop eating or breathing or resting, we literally die. Jonathan's office job changed the benefits and severance pay policies and it died super quick. So what about those times when breaking a cycle leads to death?
My theory is that death or the general breaking of cycles isn't always bad, because it can lead to rebirth. After the fall of society due to the pandemic, a new society will be built. There's no saying whether it will be good or bad, but there will be one ("Life...finds a way.") It was painful for Candace and her parents to leave their homes, but they did it in hopes that they would get a new lease on life.
Now, let's talk about why cycles get a bad rap. Jonathan had been writing a book about generations that lived in the same town. I don't remember whether he had an opinion on the matter, but seeing as how he moved away from his home to Chicago, I'm going to say that he didn't like that. Candace also moved away from her family and never returned to them. This is my personal opinion, but capitalistic society requires constant change. There always needs to be something newer and bigger and better, which is why it is so unsustainable. How can something always be improved? Some things are fine just the way they are. For example, how the heck do you improve a spoon? It's perfect the way it is.
For Candace, cycles were both good and bad. I'll start with the bad. When she broke up with Jonathan, she had to refrain from returning home, because she'd probably become aware of how Jonathan wasn't around anymore, and she would miss him. Instead, she went out partying with the Art Girls, which she never does. So in this case, she had to break free of an unhealthy cycle. In addition, as I mentioned, some people theorized that Candace had become fevered herself at the end, and she was trying to break free of that cycle of whatever she was going to do through her willpower.
In addition, the cycles shown in capitalism were seen in a very evil light. For example, when the gemstone supplier in China shut down, it was very freaky how everybody just went around looking for another gemstone supplier. Everybody was "just doing their jobs," even though the workers in the China were dying.
However, it was made clear that Candace also sought comfort in routines. As mentioned, when she was a child, her mother would recite an itinerary, and it would give her peace because she always knew what was coming up. When the pandemic hit, she kept going to work, because at that point, she had nothing to live for (her parents were gone). This was the one way that the capitalist dream helped her, because even when everyone was fleeing home, she was thinking about closing deals and such. Other habits that kept her on track included updating NY Ghost, praying, etc.)
Memories
Candace had a theory that nostalgia triggered the Shen Fever. Ashley didn't become fevered until she went home. This is a very direct comparison to the fact that memories throw us back into old habits. For example, if someone is the baby of the family, they will always be the baby of the family as long as they return.
As I mentioned before, Alzheimer's seemed a bit like Shen Fever in that Candace's mom was talking about things that she used to say to Candace when she was still lucid. Now, they didn't make sense, but they did once, and she is reciting them, as a symptom or maybe as comfort.
At one point, Candace said that perhaps her mother's memories triggered her own memories. I interpret this to mean that someone recalling their memories about an event will prompt me to recall my own memories about the same event. Interesting, because we could have totally different memories about the same thing. That one thing could prompt both of us to be stuck in our different loops.
I just had a thought about whether Candace had contracted Shen Fever. She thought she'd never been to Chicago, and she thought that all of her memories of Chicago were from Jonathan telling her about it. When she got there, she remembered that she had been to Chicago before, with her parents when she was young. Was it that memory that prompted her to become fevered? I don't actually believe super strongly that Candace became fevered at the end, it's just very interesting to think about.
Capitalism
Like many people, Candace participates in the capitalism even though she doesn't agree with it. What can she do? It's required for survival, especially since she's on her own now.
Candace said that her parents just wanted her to be a useful person. This does indeed sound like a rather Eastern Confucian value, very community-oriented. And Candace fulfilled that role. She was a great member of Spectra, getting deals done and producing great works.
So what about Capitalism is to dislike? It's the breaking of cycles. As I mentioned, capitalism always aims for bigger and better, but sometimes, that's just not possible. The thing about bibles, which Candace produces, is that they barely change. The text doesn't change, it's just how it's packaged. So maybe that's why Candace was able to thrive so long in her role. The innovation hadn't sucked out her soul.
And as mentioned, Jonathan's company had gone through drastic changes in taking away benefits and such that workers relied on, which prompted the company to close very soon.
And yet, work culture can be good. Candace's job kept her alive and protected and motivated (until it didn't). It just needs to be combined with a society/community-focused approach instead of an individualistic approach in order to be healthy.
I'm not going to go into a deeper dive of capitalism because this is only one part of the book, and this is a hot enough topic that I think most people would be able to interpret the capitalistic aspects of this book in a way that makes sense to themselves.
Culture
There wasn't as big of a focus on culture as I would've thought, but that's alright, it was enough for me.
I'll admit the "Orientalist party" left a bad taste in my mouth. Presumably Candace was the only Asian at the party because no one knew how to play Mahjong and they all looked to her for help to which she was like "just because I'm Asian doesn't mean I know how to play."
But that party set the tone for the rest of the book, in terms of Candace's experiences with culture. I think mostly everybody she spoke to in New York was not Chinese. The first time in the book she'd spoken to someone who was Chinese other than family was when she went to China to tour the printing factories. What was so...different about that experience was that she was the only person she knew who could have experienced that sort of interaction. Balthasar tried to make small talk with her in Mandarin, which she understood. She wasn't even super confident in her Mandarin, but she could cross that bridge, and nobody, not even Blythe, who was there with her and had done this trip many times, could say that she could go to China and be treated as Chinese. I don't think that it was like, a life-changing moment, but we saw that Balthasar and Candace maintained a good working relationship, and culture helped her bridge that.
In the modern political climate, the Sinophobia is strong. This book was relatively recent, from 2018, but it didn't really go in depth into Sinophobia and whether that changed during the pandemic. That's fine. I can imagine it would've been a topic that no one would have wanted to write about, and even if someone did write about it, no one could have expected that Sinophobia would've escalated to how it has today.
Occasionally, Candace did immerse herself in her culture when in the States, going to Chinatown to get food. She emphasized that she stayed in the Hokkien parts because the Cantonese parts were a little too tourist-y lol. I can sympathize with that, as a Cantonese myself.
Immigration and Fitting in
In addition to Candace's encounters with Chinese culture, there were commentaries on immigration in general.
Candace's desire to be an Art Girl seemed to me to be a comparison to immigrants wanting to fit in, but knowing they never will. Part of this is literal, as I'm sure the Art Girls were probably all white. But it can be read figuratively as well.
Eddie, the taxi driver, was a Hispanic man. He told Candace that New York was the city of immigrants, and that was why he preferred New York to the place in Connecticut where he'd been with a commune. I totally understand what he means. For a period of time in my life, I dreamed of living in a small town, but now I know I could never. I need to be near multiculturalism. My own ethnic culture, but multiculturalism itself is also so much more comforting and terrifying than...small town North America.
When Candace and Blythe went shopping in Hong Kong, Candace made a very interesting observation. She said that there was such an elaborate gradient between real and fake products in Hong Kong, which is true, but the idea of real and fake being a gradient is very interesting, because I see it both as healthy and dangerous.
It's healthy in the way that it's less polarizing. You don't have to fit in the "real" or "fake" category, sometimes you're a bit of both, to varying degrees. People nowadays are so obsessed with labels. You're either this or that. You're either pure and innocent or evil and cancelled. People need to understand that life is a spectrum.
However, the idea of a spectrum can also be dangerous if it literally is a spectrum with only two sides. You shouldn't be forced to define yourself according to a certain scale. For example, some people view heterosexuality and homosexuality as a spectrum, you're either more sexually attracted to women or more sexually attracted to men. But what about the people who just doesn't experience sexual attraction? Why do asexual people have to define themselves with that scale when they're not sexually attracted to people that way? This isn't a perfect example, but I hope you get I'm going for. Another example may be majors at university. Perhaps people are judged by whether they are a science student, engineering, humanities, etc. But what about people who are not academically inclined? What if they are hands-on people, doing apprenticeships in woodworking, plumbing, etc? They are not less valid.
So spectrums are good, but don't be limited by them either.
I wanted to make another point about fitting in. Candace talked about how mole-removing surgery was a thing that her mom was into. But she noted how even after the moles were removed, there were white spots, which indicated that there had been a mark there. She was still marked in the places she desired to be unmarked. And it gave me the impression that Candace was saying that even if you tried your best to fit in, to pare yourself down to be the same as other people, the fact that you did will still stick out.
The end
As important as cycles are, so are the breaking of cycles.
Originally, Candace wanted to do a project on declining cities. New York in particular was a city that was always being gentrified.
But as I mentioned above, the end doesn't really mean the end sometimes. Sometimes it means repurposing.
Wikipedia told me that Ling Ma wrote this book while she was on severance pay, which I guess was the inspiration for the title, Severance. Severance itself also refers to breaking something off, so I guess it's safe to say I was not wrong that breaking cycles was important to this book.
Religion
Religion is so cyclical. As mentioned, the bible is already written, nothing new is being added to the canon. Every year, Christians celebrate the same holidays. In some religions, life is a constant cycle of life and death and rebirth, until one reaches enlightenment.
Perhaps religion is humans' way of rationalizing their cycles that keep them alive and keep them going.
When Candace's parents arrived in the States, the Chinese community was over at the church, and so religion sort of became a backdrop to Candace's life. I don't think she was very religious, but sometimes she would pray, and she wasn't averse to religion.
Bob of course as a cult leader tried to use religion to control other people. Just as how religion helps people rationalize the cycles in their lives, he tried to use religion to make the members of the group feel content with their roles, to keep them there.
Dreams
Are dreams an end? A means to an end. Dreams are what keep people going.
Candace believed in the myth of New York, which was why she spent so long in New York without becoming disenchanted with it. Her dream of earning money and working to the top kept her in the grind.
Candace's hallucination about her mom was also what encouraged her to finally escape from the facility.
In this book we see instances where dreams both keep people in cycles, and keep allow them to break cycles. That being said, that is a very idealistic way of looking at things. We can't just say you can stay in a cycle or break out of a cycle as long as you dream of it.
Candace was stuck in the cycle of work because she needed it to survive. So she thought up of a dream for herself to keep her going. I imagine that many people who work long hours perhaps think of providing their family as a goal to keep them going.
Overall
I really enjoyed this book. It was totally different from what I expected, rather grim and heavy, but I loved this tone. I would definitely recommend it.