Pandemic life mirrors fiction in Nevada radio show’s book club
Candace Chen is a millennial living her life when a plague of Biblical proportions from China sweeps over New York City. Companies go out of business. The subway is now a dangerous place. People are on edge thinking it’s the end of the world. Then come the zombies.
No, this isn’t art imitating life, but the other way around. This is “Severance: A Novel” by author Ling Ma, a 2018 Kirkus Prize winner for fiction that was published before anyone first uttered the word COVID-19.
The quirky, dystopian coming-of-age satire set during the fictional Shen Fever from China focuses on the rituals and routines of life under the threat of a global health crisis — which now seems more relevant than ever.
The book is the basis of a new radio show produced and written in Nevada. Severance Radio: A Nevada Reads Book Club is produced by Nevada Humanities and the Black Mountain Institute, the group effort includes producers Stephanie Gibson, Kathleen Kuo, Mir Arif, and Layla Muhammad.
We spoke to Gibson about why this book is suddenly all the buzz.
rjmagazine: Tell us about your radio book club.
Stephanie Gibson: Nevada Reads is a book club through Nevada Humanities. This year, “Severance” was our fictional book choice and we chose it well before COVID, which seems a little insane given what’s happening now. Our theme this year was a book about social inequality and the workplace culture. The book revolves around the drone-like behavior of working in an office space under the auspices of a zombie apocalypse novel.
How does the show work?
We air the audiobook with permission. We punctuate each episode with a conversation between two or three really smart people. Ling has been so wonderfully supportive. She was interviewed for the inaugural episode and she will be on the last episode as well.
It’s uncanny that you picked this book before the virus hit.
It really is. It feels even more important because the book also discusses what this virus does to our economy and the world along with individuals and families. We’ve been able to discuss some interesting themes on the show including the history of pandemics and humor in a time of crisis.
Please don’t say Ling knows something about us turning into zombies.
That is fiction. In the book, the Shen Fever turns people into the undead. The twist is these zombies are still performing the same functions that they did before they were infected. It’s a reflection of how we live our lives and spend our minutes and hours. There is even racism involved here and a theme of ‘I’ll keep my people safe at the expense of your people.’ It’s a fascinating study as to what it means to be human.
What kind of response have you had to the show?
It has been a wonderful response. It’s a new way for people to experience a book. It’s a way to sit down on a Sunday and spend a few hours with experts discussing your book.
For all of us dealing with COVID … is there at least fictional hope at the end of the book?
I won’t give the ending away, but it casts a hopeful tone. The book leaves you with the idea that maybe we should spend a little more time expanding the notion of ‘we.’ As an artist, mother and feminist, I might say ‘we’ and mean women, but now I feel like I should expand that ‘we’ to Americans or humans. The book asks: Who is in your tribe? We have been taught the hopefulness of forging our own path, but this is a message of solidarity with other people.
blackmountaininstitute.org/severance-radio
