Ep. 295 Severance by Ling Ma — The Stacks Book Club (Mitchell S. Jackson)

Written By Cherie Marquez
Ep. 295 Severance by Ling Ma — The Stacks Book Club (Mitchell S. Jackson)

Author Mitchell S. Jackson returns for our book club discussion of Ling Ma’s post-apocalyptic novel Severance. On this episode we try to piece together the story’s timeline, unpack the ending, and we cast the TV show adaptation. We also discuss quote marks, capitalism, and the role of religion throughout the novel.
There are spoilers on this episode.

Be sure to listen to the end of today’s episode to find out what our December book club pick will be.

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

Connect with Mitchell: Instagram | Twitter | Website
Connect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Subscribe

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. If you prefer to support the show with a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website.

TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Traci Thomas 0:08
Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I’m your host Traci Thomas and today is the Stacks book club day. That’s right. We are joined again by Pulitzer Prize winner and author Mitchell S. Jackson. We’re talking about the 2018 post apocalyptic pandemic novel Severance by Ling Ma. The book follows Candace Chen before and after an incurable infection gradually wipes out all of civilization. And we dive into the similarities between this book and COVID the critique of capitalism and that ending holy cow. All right, y’all, there are spoilers on today’s episode. So if you haven’t read the book, pause now read the book. Come back and listen. At the end of today’s episode, I will announce our December book club pick. So make sure you listen all the way to the end to find out what book we will be ending 2023 with. Quick reminder, everything we talked about on each episode of the stacks can be found in the link in the show notes. All right, now it is time for my spoiler filled conversation with Mitchell s Jackson about the novel severance by Ling Ma.

All right, everybody. I am so excited. It is the Stacks book club day. We are joined again by a Pulitzer Prize winning author. His newest book is called Fly. It’s a book about basketball fashion, you remember him from earlier this month. It is Mitchell S. Jackson. Mitchell, welcome back to the Stacks.

Thank you for having me. I’m excited.

I’m so excited. So it’s a book club day, we’re talking about Severance by Ling Ma. If you’re listening to us right now and you have not read the book, please know we are going to be doing spoilers. So stop listening if you don’t want to know. And let me give everybody like a quick background on the book and then we’ll dive in. So severance is a 2018 novel. It is a post pandemic sort of post apocalyptic novel about a fever. It centers a character named Candace Chen. She survives the fever. It’s herb she’s with a group of other survivors. They’re trying to figure it out. It’s also giving flashbacks of her life as a person who makes Bibles who works for a company that makes Bibles and her dating life and her family, her parents who are immigrants from China. So it’s sort of a flashback, flash forward kind of book. I did it. Okay, we always start here, Michel, just generally, what did you think of the book?

I really liked this book a lot. I saw. So I guess as by way of being forthcoming with information Ling and our colleagues at University of Chicago, oh, cool. Just for a year, and we actually never met because she was I was there during the pandemic, which we can also talk about, okay. And Ling was on a sabbatical. But But this novel strikes me as the kind of novel that would come out of the University of Chicago students.

Oh, what? What makes you say that what is the University of Chicago book? Like?

I think, from my brief time there, again, during the pandemic, that they’re really curious students, in faculty as well, though, she was a student there, and then she, she taught while I was there, okay. And I think that they’re, they’re like, there’s a kind of rigor like they, they always tell how they love, like, lunchtime. Not arguments, but like real debate, right? So it’s, it’s a school, I think, that prides itself on his intellectualism, probably more than any other school in the country because it’s not an ivy. Right. But then it’s it’s it tries to maintain a higher prestige than the Ivy’s. And so I think there’s this slide was a lot of things but it’s also really heavy and it takes on a lot of different subjects. And there’s a lot of kind of cultural references and allusions so that’s what made me think like, oh, I can See this coming out of that kind of thinking and curiosity?

I see. Okay, let me give you my overall and then we’ll dive in. So I started this book, and I could not stay awake, every five pages, I would fall asleep. I don’t know what the prologue totally hooked me. And then every five pages, I would fall asleep. And then I got about a third of the way into the book, like maybe like page 70. And then I finished it in like a day and a half. I really liked her writing, even when I was falling asleep. But there was something about the jumping back and forth in the beginning that I really struggled with. However, when I finished the book, I was like, Oh, my God, I have to go back to the beginning. Because I know I miss things. And I really like I really liked the book. And and I’m, you know, I think we talked about this, I’m not like super into fiction. And so sometimes I struggle with fiction. But everything about this book I really liked, except for I, for some reason, like could not get into it at the start. So I don’t know, it’s like, it’s like one of those weird experiences that I’ve had with the book that I really liked. But for whatever reason, there was like a thing that didn’t work for me. This has happened before on the show, and I still can’t quite figure out what it was that was making me sleepy at the start. But I really liked it. Like I didn’t think I was gonna like it. I thought I was gonna be like, Oh, shit, I have to get on here and talk shit about a book. And then by the end, I was like, Okay, I’m with you. I think maybe I didn’t I couldn’t connect with Candice at first. I couldn’t quite figure her out. And so I kept like, dropping off because she’s so much the Centaur. You know. Um, I want to I want to ask you why you wanted to do this book, because I sent over a list of like, 10 titles, and this is the one you picked. So what was it about severance? That was exciting or interesting to you?

I mean, there’s a lot of reasons. One, I had heard about the one she was my colleague, and I feel like, but not beholding. But I feel a responsibility to know the work of my colleagues as much as I can. So I felt that I actually just not just now a few years ago, signed with FSG. So now we share an editor and Jenna, and it was interesting for me to see her sensibilities what I imagined would be Jenna’s sensibilities and what caught what like what she could do with this kind of work, right? So um, I’m also learning I mentioned in our interview last time I like I never read for pleasure. So this is I’m reading this whole thing as a writer, and a really selfish writer in that way. Because I want to know how Jenna edits I want to know how lean thinks I’m interested in the structure the back and forth. I was interested in a prologue and the voice of it, and I had started reading bliss montage before I read this, so So I had a sense of some of her short fiction and the things that she could do in short period. So I was really excited, because I think Leanne is an inventive writer and has a great imagination. So there were a lot of things that made me and then you know, wanting to go back to the beginning, right? Like, if you start with bliss, you’re like, Oh, well, I caught on a second go around. And also, again, the writer, and he’s like, I’m working on a novel. So why wouldn’t I want to read another novel? I think there’s, you know, you say you don’t read a lot of novels, but the novel was like, it can do anything. Right. And I think this book is a good example of, even though it’s pretty short of a novel that does a lot of different things.

Yeah, this book does a lot of different things. Yeah. She talks about I mean, I was like, I mean, I guess we should just dive in. Yeah. Okay. Here’s my first question for you. We talked about this because your book had no quote marks. This book has no quote marks. What did you think? Was the purpose of that? Did you as you’re reading it, as a writer have feelings about it? Did you have an interpretation on that?

No, it’s strange, because maybe I’m too sensitized to no quotation marks, but I actually didn’t even realize it until I was several. That there were no quote marks. And then I, I went back and was thinking, Well, why are these and I think there’s so much about memory. Remember, I was talking about when you have memories, and you don’t know what’s real and what isn’t. And this character literally has that struggle, right? Like, what is her mother’s memories from what are her own? What are the memories of her relationship? And what are and so I think in that way, it’s able to kind of help assist the reader in in blending those memories, what’s real, what isn’t? What happened in the past what’s happening now. So in that way, it kind of jives with my explanation of you Seeing your marks.

Yeah, it totally does. I mean, for me, I was thinking like, she’s unreliable. Like, there’s something about Candice even from the beginning, I was like, I don’t know about you girl. Like, there’s just there’s something about her. I didn’t think also because the situation we start off like that first prologue. And it’s like, we Googled this, we did this. And at the end of it, she’s like, Actually, I didn’t do any of that, because I wasn’t there yet. And I was like, I don’t know about you. I was like, Wait a second, I was with you. You give me five great pages. And all of a sudden, you’re like, Actually, I didn’t actually do any of that. And so I think I sort of had like a suspicion of Canvas. And so I was like, maybe all of this isn’t real. And I feel like and I think maybe that also comes from my nonfiction reading, like a nonfiction if you’re kind of quoting, a gist of something you don’t use quote, marks, right, quote, marks when a person says a quote, I was sort of like, I don’t know, I don’t know about her. And also, like, to your point, you were in my head, and I was thinking like, what’s memory? What’s real? Like, how does this tie together? So I was also thinking about that, which as the book goes on, and memory becomes this, like, huge back during like nostalgia. I think that also sort of tipped me off. To sort of maybe the twist of the book, or like, the twist of the ending was the the No, quote, marks, it felt like almost like an Easter egg as I kept going. But I don’t know if I would have felt that as much if you hadn’t said that. When we talked. I was like, that was like, oh, maybe it’s something interesting.

Like, I know what though, like, do you trust, like in the world, would you would you trust more someone who was like, Man, I know how this happened. And like, you did this and I have a friend. He, you asked him something that I’m uncertain about him, like, you know, that was on a Tuesday, man, and we was right over there on 33rd Street by one o’clock. I’m like, You should. He’s 25 years ago, we told him, or a person who says, you know, I’m not quite sure. It could have happened like this. And well, no, no, no, actually, it might have like, I think the honesty of misremembering, not being certain or starting a story. Like I actually trust that person more than a narrator that has started to I’d miss trust servitude.

Okay, but here’s let me throw a wrench in this. I am the person who remembers shit like that. I have an insane memory for the dates and times. And like, I remember days of the week, I will remember what happened. But I’ll be like, Oh, I was wearing that purple dress. And we were out in front of this. Like, I can’t see it. Can’t remember what you told me. But like, like, oh, we went to this concert. Like, oh, yeah, that’s when you got your new brown boots. Like, I’ll remember shit like that. So I do trust it if it’s coming from me. A total skeptic on it, because I do have a good memory. But what I think is interesting about what you’re saying is that in life, I think I might trust someone who’s like, I don’t know more. But in a book, I feel like I’m supposed to trust you because you’re telling me the story, which is why I think unreliable narrators are such a good trope. Like if it’s done well, and you trick the reader. It’s such an exciting feeling. Because 99% of the time, you’re supposed to like believe. Yes, author. But like, so too. But also in the book. What she does is she changes her like character’s point of view, like or like which person third person first, like, yeah, you know, it’s like, I did this, I did that. And then in one chapter, it’s like, they did this, they did that. And then there’s the chapter where she talks about Candice, his parents, and it’s like, in 1984, or whatever. And it goes, like, I’m so bad. I don’t know what personas what, but it does shift in this book, again, sort of like these little tells that something is up. Because that’s not usually the mark of an unreliable narrator. Usually with the raw, reliable narrative. It’s like, let’s come with me, I’m going to show you about the world like this is my x. And then at the end, they’re like, just kidding. I killed everybody or whatever. So I do feel like Ling Ma was like, sort of tipping her hand a little bit. I guess we should sort of talk about the ending first and then come back, because I think a lot of like, what I want to get into is about what happens in the book, and then a lot of like the bigger themes I think we should come back to because they kind of like plays in. When you got to the end of the book, you finish the book. She’s in Chicago, she’s driven to Chicago. And then she sees the bridge and she drives towards the bridge. Do you what what like what was your interpretation of the end of the book? What was your sort of experience with the back half?

Well, I thought it to me it’s really shifted once they got to the facility. Yeah. And then, you know, I thought, I mean, again, I’m reading I’m like, Oh, this is a nice plot to us. That they, they, we, you know, it was out in front of us for so long, like, they’re gonna make it what?

Traci Thomas 15:12
Is it real?

Mitchell S. Jackson 15:13
Is it real? Then they finally get there like, Okay, well but but they got there, you know two thirds of the way through the books I’m like, Well shit something else exciting has to happen. They already got to the facility and then when she gets locked in I’m like, oh, okay, how is this going to resolve? And I saw I read the end of it as a as a longing for connection. I think a part of canvasses unreliability is that she spent so much time alone. Right. So you you spend a lot of time alone you start, you know, she’d only went to India remember when she, I guess we can talk about whatever we want, right when she’s when she’s basically one of the last people in the office, and she hears those voices down. They’re laughing and they’re laughing. And she’s like, wait a minute, like, it’s almost like, is her mind playing tricks on her? Is it a laugh track or something? And she goes on there and they’re there. But I thought like you spend that much time you want some human contact and if you don’t get it, you start going into your mind. You start inventing stories, you start thinking your dead mother is talking to you, right? Like all of these things that are that are happening to you because you don’t have a connection. And I think the end of the book is her wishing, hoping trying to find a connection. Like I actually think she’s going to look for homeboys house.

Okay, we have a very different read. This is how I read the ending. Okay, Candice is fevered. And she gets sick. And it’s not until she goes back towards because I think the facility is right past Chicago, I’m pretty sure they said they had to go past Chicago. So she goes back. And what we know about the fever is then going back and the stall jaw is what triggers it perhaps, because that’s what happens to Ashley. And that’s what happens to Bob. Bob gets it at the facility, which is where he grew up, Ashley gets it at her house. Candace has it, she starts to go back. And that’s what triggers it. And that’s why we know that she has it earlier because she’s talking to her dead mother. We know that something’s like amiss with her. But then she goes backwards. She starts having Jonathan’s memories, she starts having her childhood memories. And so that’s when she’s gone. Fully triggered. She’s driving towards the bridge.

It’s a car accident. It’s done.

She’s totally out of it. So by the end, it’s goodbye, Candace, hello, SHAN fever, another victim.

But okay, I can see that. Certainly, I can sit. But there has to be people, right? Remember, some people are immune to this.

That’s what we’re told by Candace and not. So here’s what I think that’s, I think people are immune to it. Because those people are the people who didn’t go back home. When everybody started working from home. It was like everybody who worked from when everybody left the offices and then everybody started getting it. And so I think that because Candice stayed away from people. And she stayed in New York, and she didn’t look back because she didn’t have family she didn’t have anywhere to go. Wasn’t until she starts to go back. And that I think everyone’s actually susceptible to it, which is like, I feel like she was like planting seeds maybe around it when she was telling talking about Bob and social media and how social media is just like looking in the past. And Candice wasn’t really on social media. So I don’t know there’s something like even her social media was Slyke isolated, she wasn’t actually connecting with people from her past. She was connecting with people outside of her like New York ghost. And they kept her going. So I think that she gets it when she gets in the taxi cab with the taxi cab driver for the same time. Yeah, I think it’s Eddie who gets it to her. And then it incubates for a few weeks while she’s with the group. And then she starts to go back at

When she first gets in. And Edie is like, the second time when he’s already

Fever when he’s already fevered. Because that’s a go back. It’s like her second. It’s her second time with him. So I think that’s like her first nostalgic moment.

Of she’s like, she didn’t even try to get into the she didn’t even know that was Eddie. That was just a random cap.

That’s true. That’s true. That’s true. But also Okay, here’s my elbow. So this is what I’ve been working through is when did she get it? Right? Because that’s like the trick of the book. To me. It’s like when did she when did it actually happen for her? But I wonder if actually getting it as tied to nostalgia or just going to the final step is tied to nostalgia. Like is it possible that people have it and it’s just dormant and then until the next Tulsa triggers it because they were like Ashley’s totally fine and all of a sudden it truly goes full fledge.

Okay, so let’s say Bob right. Bob is sleepwalking every night, right because she’s eating him.

Yeah-

It can’t be fever because if he was fevered he wouldn’t be able to have those conversations.

But he can be because the fever takes over slowly. So first you start being like absent minded because Wait, let me go to chapter I think it’s 13 where they like to do the frequently asked questions about it. This is what they say, because I thought the same thing okay, it’s a symptoms. In its initial stages, Shen fever is difficult to detect. Early Symptoms include memory lapse, headaches, dysentery, disorientation, shortness of breath, and fatigue. Because these symptoms are often taken for a common cold patients are often unaware they have contracted Shen fever. They may appear functional and are still able to execute rote everyday tasks. However, these symptoms will worsen.

Yeah. So what symptom did Bob exhibit? He never was sick, the things that he’s doing, right, but if he was sleepwalking then that seems like that was the fever.

Right? So but but because he was doing it at the mall, so it got triggered at the mall for him. And it got worse and worse, but maybe you hadn’t gone full fever it she just happened to catch him in that moment where she could tell he was fevered.

Okay, but she can’t she remember she hears Bob,

She hears that, but she doesn’t see well before.

Like, yeah, for weeks or several while she’s hearing him walk. But even after that, he’s it’s not like what he’s doing his road. He’s not getting up doing the same thing. He’s actually go here, do this direct that get this.

They can do executive functions. So like, I think he’s maybe early onset fever.

Okay.

I love you’re like looking at me so skeptical.

I mean, not too many, you know, like, Oh, how did he get it? But I didn’t see. I guess I didn’t see it coming. Yeah,

I mean, I didn’t but I certainly, yes. I didn’t see it coming. But I had a sense. Early in the book. I had this like idea popped into my head of like, what if Qantas is fevered? Because there was a few, there was a one moment early on her timeline in New York was off. She talked about 911. Like, it was like the anniversary of 911. And then she went back and she said something, and then she’s like, and then by the end of late August, and I was like, Wait, I thought we were already at 911. And so that, for whatever reason, trip me up like that. It was just like, because, again, I’m a dates person. So and I’m trying also to orient the pregnancy because I could not figure out how far along she really was how long like was she actually pregnant? Do we know?

I mean, it seemed like a really long pregnancy. It’s kind of hard to tell, because she’s pregnant before. Everybody leaves the facility. No leaves her job, right.

So she’s pregnant on the boyfriend leaves.

She makes it all the way to her date. Right to the date that she gets the big check. She makes that way. That’s November 30. Yes, it all of that is before they actually get on the road to go to the facility. Right. That’s before she even joins up. Yeah, so however long that takes, and then she’s in the facility for a month or two before we-

We know that we get at least to Christmas, because she says to the girl is this Christmas that she said girl Christmas already happened? Yeah.

So I don’t know. It’s not that it couldn’t that mean? Surely all that stuff could happen in nine months, but it was like, wow, you’ve been praying for a long time. So but I do think she’s pregnant though. Because she wasn’t.

Nobody was nobody could see like she she didn’t. She wasn’t showing when she went to Ashley’s house, because only the one other girl knew Janelle or whatever. But that still would have been months later because she would have been pregnant on September 11. And that’s past November 30. So she’s at least three months pregnant at the very least. But it sounded like September 11 was a little bit further into the thing. Yeah. So I feel like she was like four or five months. She says she’s five months pregnant. But she also said she lied about that to Bob, because she said, didn’t want to tell me exactly. But I don’t know if she lied over or under or why. Right? Right. It just so that was so I was like trying to figure it out. I know. There’s some smart listener who’s going to be like, okay, she was exactly 34 weeks. So please tell me a smart person listening. I know, you know, I’m okay. So that’s my theory of what happened.

I live by the fever now because I kept thinking why the hell Isn’t she stopping for gas? Right? Because she knows she’s about to run out. But then I’m like, Well, I guess she’s linked. She’s becoming more fuel come, I won’t, why wouldn’t would she even recognize that? You know, like, Eddie was just driving everyone, she stopped him and she was like, his foot was still on the gas

On the gas. So she might not be as fevered though, right? Like gets worse and worse and worse. So maybe she’s just like, in a state.

Yeah. Well, this sucks, because that means I just thought I was hoping that some people would just be immune. I was like, thinking about COVID. Like, there’s some people who just never got to COVID. Right, right. Maybe that if I were to read this in 2018, I might have thought differently. But having gone through COVID I was like, Nah, somebody’s got to be immune from this stuff, please.

Right. Yeah. I mean, that’s the thing is like, she doesn’t really tell us the truth. She being Lima doesn’t really tell us the truth of what Shen fever is, she leaves it open enough that Allah is possible. Yeah. And I feel like, I mean, one of the things that’s so cool about this book, having lived through COVID and reading it, you know, I know a lot of people read it and like, early 2020, and I was like, what is wrong? Do not do this yourself. But reading it like after a little bit of time. i It was so fun seeing all the things she got right. Like the masking, but also masking. Yeah, like the way that Candice like, oh, it makes my face hot. I don’t like to wear it, which were the fucking mask Aaron Rodgers. Okay. And then like the work from home stuff, yeah, travel ban. And then she had this one email, where she was writing to Bal bazaar back in China. And she was like, given these trying times. And I was like, if I never see that sentence, yeah, it will be too soon. That was like the most triggering thing in the whole book of giving these trying times and like in these difficult times. And then like she even had that people had like fashion masks. Because remember that thing? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there were just so many like little details that I was really kind of like stunned by that she wrote it before.

Exactly.

We’re so specific. I’m like, did the people in charge of America did they read this book? And that’s why they did a travel ban, like a movie.

Contagion, contagion?

Yeah.

They pretty much get all of it, right. They do. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess somewhere there’s got to be some booklet on what you do during pandemic. Just read not just not to diminish what right length did but there is so spot on that it must be a handbook somewhere. This is I want to know, the research for this thing. Me too.

What did you read station 11. By? Okay, so I read that in 2018. Before COVID I think this book came out in like, 2014. So I read it a little bit after it came out. But before COVID And I don’t remember her getting as much stuff right? About, like pandemic, she, her her version of pandemic was much. I mean, there was definitely like the hoarding of groceries that was big in her book. But she didn’t talk about like masking or like, it was much more about like, individual people’s experiences. So I think this book, severance felt so spot on, but I also think maybe I was reading for it. I wonder if I read this before the pandemic, if I would have even noticed the n95 mask stuff like it was so probably-

Where in Station Eleven? Where did it come from?

Whatever the virus, I honestly can’t remember I’ve read it so long ago.

I think that’s also something that was really spot on about this, you know, like the, the where it came from and what that meant, you know, I remember everybody was like anti Asian really scare, you know-

Like a travel ban being more extreme on Asian countries. Yeah, totally.

Also, because she actually goes there and so that’s a thing about the how capacious this book is it’s like a set in you know, we get the Midwest we get New York, we get we get Utah we get Utah we get those places in China like it’s, it’s a bunch of different play, and we get to see, you know, all of them and get to see the culture. So I thought that was also really, I mean, for for a debut novel. This is ambitious.

Talking about ambition- I do think this novel is really ambitious. I also think for the most part, she pulls it off, it’s well executed. I can be so new pickI especially when I know a book is a debut, I’m like, Why did they do this? Why they did. But I was really, I felt like she hits so many of the right marks and like, had so much good criticism, like one of the things that sticks out to me is like Candice getting locked up. And like, in the mall, of all places, and like, this book is like a critique of capitalism. And like, right, you can’t have capitalism without a mall. But you also can’t have capitalism without incarceration. You know, like, you just can’t, like, you can’t like the fact that that was represented in the book to me was just like, I was shocked when they closed the great, but I was also like, Oh, of course, because this is a critique of the whole thing.

Also, like, wealth, you know, in its relationship, right, the art girls and how they buy the paintings, and they’re living off their trust fun and, and also class stratification, right, because Canvas is not poor, like she could live for a long time off of her trust fund. And what does that mean? Yeah, I thought she, she got a lot of big, big stuff that she was tackling.

And also then like, the the cheque that comes from her staying. How much money would you have to get to stay in? upleg? Oh,

I don’t know. I couldn’t think of a number.

I don’t know. Let’s say you were single and in your 20s. Yeah, let’s not say now, because I know, we’re both parents. We got a lot to lose at this point in our lives. But in your I mean, I was in New York in 2011. Mostly single. I just met my partner who’s my husband now. But I was, you know, that was my life. I was post college. Teaching kids dance. If my dance work. I put, I don’t know a million.

Well, I guess it depends because Candice already has a mini Trust Fund.

Right. But she said that the amount they offered was be like life changing for her. Yes.

That’s hard to say. I mean, the million would be like the low end, the low end.

Traci Thomas 32:09
Well, that’s what I think now. But I’m like, right, but uh, yeah. $1,000 I’m gonna take in like, 10 G’s, honestly. I mean, like I said, I was teaching kids dads like after school. So who I would have taken probably plenty- it owes me.

Mitchell S. Jackson 32:26
And if you win the lottery, what you’re gonna do like that? Yeah, definitely had those conversations.

Traci Thomas 32:31
Yeah yeah, but so should we know she had worked there for five years. We know. She’s like a salaried employee. It’s New York City. So she’d moved up a little bit in the business, but not a lot. So she was probably making $75,000 in 2011, don’t you think? Yeah, probably somewhere around there. It’s gotta be at least like, because she was like, Well, my bank account. So it’s got to be at least like 250,000 Yeah. 500,000.

Mitchell S. Jackson 32:58
I would say like, Well, how long did she work again? Was it three months?

Traci Thomas 33:03
I think it was just one month. We just one month? I think it was just the end of 30 days.

Mitchell S. Jackson 33:08
Oh, that I don’t remember that letter? I don’t remember it was No. Was it? November,

Traci Thomas 33:15
November 30. Is when the check came through?

Mitchell S. Jackson 33:19
But I don’t know when they left though. Right? I mean, for 30 days. Yeah. Let us stay. Yeah, I work it out. Yeah, I don’t remember. But I do think that when I saw her get the money. I was like, Oh, that’s cool. But when I was like, Well, how many ATMs like what’s the banking system? Because I was like, who’s even taking money? Right? So I was like, what she’s saying something about how at the end of all of this, the money actually doesn’t even matter. Right?

Traci Thomas 33:55
Right. That felt very clear. Like that was the answer of like, it doesn’t matter. But it also felt like, at least in my reading of it, of like, family doesn’t even matter either. Like, people went home and just died. Like, it’s sort of felt like butter sort of together. Sure. They died together. Yeah. You know, die lonely. No. Well, yeah, I guess unless you’re the survivors. But yeah, no, it definitely felt like even when they were being like, hey, Candace, I mean, I think because we knew that things were gonna go bad. But being like, Hey, if you stay for 30 days, like, we’ll give you a lot of money. I was like, Girl, that money’s not gonna be worth anything. It’s gonna be worth less than toilet paper. But, but yeah, I definitely. I definitely had that exact same thought. I mean, I think she’s also like, I think there’s something interesting happening in the book around religion as well. Yeah. Candace works with the Bible. But I think like Bob is a cult leader essentially. Right? And then also her parents relationship to her Religion through community and like Kim, like finding that Chinese communal Christian Center, the CCCC, or whatever. And I was thinking a lot about like, this might be I’m not a, I’m famously not a very deep reader. But for some reason, I felt like I was really trying to find connections in this book, I feel like they’re sort of like waiting for you to pick them. And one of the things I thought a lot about was like religion as plague. Like the way that like religion spreads similarly, where it’s like, at first, her parents get to Utah, and they just go to the church to find other Chinese people. And then it becomes like, their whole life and the mom’s starting programs, and it becomes this whole cultural communal thing. And we see a similar thing with Bob, right? It’s like Bob’s just kind of like the guy who knows where the facility is. And then the next thing you know, Bob’s got people locked up. Bob’s like, got all the keys.

Mitchell S. Jackson 35:49
He’s wild, you know, people sacrifices boxes, shoot people in the face, like-

I’m just like, This is it felt in that same way of like, at first, it’s just a little thing. And then the next thing you know, and like, there seemed to be other sort of like metaphors as plague to like, the storm sort of felt similar. Yeah. Same kind of vibe. I don’t know. Did you live in New York during any of the Hurricane Sandy? Yeah, so same, and it felt really similar to that too, of like, oh, there’s this little storm coming and people being like, well, let’s go out and get like, let’s go get free hurricane like New Orleans bar. And then it’s like, all of a sudden, next thing, you know, it’s pouring rain. You can’t get a cop you’re outside your freaked out. And not like felt so much like, like the like the plague to like, I don’t I don’t know exactly what the connection was. But I kept seeing that like, repetitive feeling of like, Oh, this feels really familiar. But I didn’t quite Did you? Did you feel like you had a clear grasp of like, what her critique of religion was? Or like, why she chose Bibles for Candace.

I think it was something about the, like, religion and faith without spirituality. Because remember, the mom gets into it for like, social Yeah, right to be social with the other women and she’s helping plan the stuff and it’s like cultural to her like they can get teach the kids Chinese. And though she prays, it feels almost wrote as in, like, it’s not really like, faith in a higher being and spirituality, but more like, I’m gonna do this thing because it feels like a routine for me. And I think the same thing with the Bibles, right? Like the people who are making these Bibles don’t really care about faith they care about. You know, what the paper is like? So I think it’s like, the commodification of religion, but then also, like, how religion persists without faith, like the faithless in religion.

Yeah, that’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about like that. But that does sound like that sounds right. Right, because it’s like, she works in Bibles, but she’s not religious and like the gemstone stuff, and the same, like what you’re saying with the mom totally. This book, when I looked at the marketing copy, or whatever, it calls it a satire. And I would never classify this book as a satire. But then I googled the definition of satire, okay. The Yeah, the use of humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule, ridicule, to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. Okay, I know is that right? That’s exactly my reaction. Because I was thinking this was gonna be funny, or both. Yeah. Know, and I kept trying to read it and be like, Is this funny and be like, No, it’s not funny. I like I like to laugh, but it was not.

It was not giving it I don’t think I laughed. Once it is, but I mean, maybe I might have like, chuckled, but I don’t remember laughing.

Traci Thomas 39:15
I don’t remember laughing.

Mitchell S. Jackson 39:16
Sad shit happening right?

Traci Thomas 39:21
Oh, you know what I you know, a moment where I was like, I don’t trust Candace again. Because Candace really likes Pepsi. And I’m like, Who likes Pepsi over I was like something the off was that I feel like that’s one of those things with reading is like as a reader, there can be something that is totally not intentional. I assume there are people who like Pepsi in this world. I don’t know them. But to me, a person who like loves coke. I’m just like, I can’t like it was like a weird tip for me. Like it genuinely was a tip off where I was like, something’s wrong with her. But I’m sure if you liked Pepsi, you’d never think that for a second.

Mitchell S. Jackson 40:05
Yeah. You know what I was thinking about? Remember the shark fin party? Yes. I thought that was so brilliant, right? Like, okay, tells us about the sharks and yeah, they kill the damn sharks for the themes and let them bleed out in the ocean like, oh my god, like I’m not in a bubble. I guess I’m everybody’s known environmentalist. But like, I wouldn’t be out with posters going save the sharks. But Right, right. I clearly could see, we don’t need to have no shark fin soup. And then she makes the soup and is no good. I don’t know if that was too old or so. Oh, my Wow, we’re really out here just fucking up the world for bad soup.

Traci Thomas 40:50
Bad soup to also like soup is such a such a food that like traditionally is made out of like, the worst ingredient. You know, it’s like you can use it you can use chicken bone, like you don’t mean you know. So it’s like interesting that they would use this like such a valuable ingredient to make such a like, you know, every man’s kind of food. And that in the soup, like there’s so much there’s so many things in the book that like come back a few times like this, like memory. It’s like the boyfriends retainers, they pop up a few times. Again, all of these things are things that made me think like she’s fevered because she keeps telling us about the same things like throughout where I’m just like, Okay, you already told us about the retainer, but then there’s like a slight shift, and it’s like, oh, he left like he was really good with his retainers. Then he left his retainer, so maybe he was fevered. Like maybe we know he’s dead, because he was fevered. And he was really good about being with his retainers. And then he’s not I don’t know. Well, he’s not nostalgic, but he left his retainers. And he was really good about taking care of his retainer. So I don’t know. Like there’s just so many little things like that.

Mitchell S. Jackson 41:58
To get back to the house. That’s a that’s a you know, prime mover right there.

Oh, that’s true. Jonathan, Jonathan was smooth Jonathan. He was coming up the fire is like, hey, hey, guys. Hater.

Remember when I first met, and she was up there with the other dude with the other dudes going down, going down the fire escape, and he goes, he’s not good for you or so.

Traci Thomas 42:25
He’s like, hope you enjoy that or something like, John. I, okay. It’s Jonathan white. Gotta be okay. That’s what I thought too. But I was like, it was it’s hard to tell. I felt like everybody was white around her. Yeah. Besides her parents. I agree. But I was like, it’s Jonathan white. Classic road white boy. Yeah, yeah. He’s like, wants to go on this boat or whatever. Oh, I know what I want to talk about. I want to talk about Ashley’s house scene with Baggot. harrowing. That’s, I think that scene is when I got captured in the book. Because I think that that scene, made it brought other characters in that I could hold on to and kind of track and also, that scene made me sick. Like, I couldn’t sleep through that that was was like trying to figure out what was happening. Because that was like, sort of that was sort of the first time like we saw the fever and any real like, we saw the girl at the house when they did their first stock. But that was sort of unclear. And the part where Candice like needed something clean to anchor her and there was nothing clean and yeah, and that also felt like early COVID Like I remember one of the first times after COVID had started I had to go to Target and I had like a mask on and just feeling so overwhelmed because there were like 20 people in the target and I had been like alone and being like oh my god I need to get out of here like I’m so I’m like feeling my mask at heart and like I don’t even think I took my mask off till I got all the way home like it was just so and that I think that like frenetic energy and like ik feeling was really captured. Absolutely well in that scene. And then Bob goes back with them the next day. Do we think that Janelle jumped in front or do we think that Bob killed Janelle.

Mitchell S. Jackson 44:40
I think she jumped in front. I don’t think Bob would have killed her unless she was demonstrating signs of being fever, but that wasn’t her home. So why would she?

Traci Thomas 44:50
And he didn’t say that. He just said, you know, I just trusted Bob instantly as well. So I thought Bob did a murder. That’s actually where I thought the book was going At that point, I thought it was gonna be like Bob does murderers. And so at that point, I did think that though I think you’re probably right, he probably didn’t kill her. I love her murder. I love him.

Mitchell S. Jackson 45:12
But he was not. He’s like, okay, let’s not talk about it. Like he it wasn’t like he was remorseful or anything like, Yeah, but also remember he had killed all those other fever people.

Traci Thomas 45:22
So he was at that time serial killer. Right but he was doing it as like a mercy kill is how do you say? I mean, I’m with you. I love a murder. So I’m gonna say it’s a murder. Yeah, but do we? Do we think he murdered Evan or do we think Evan did a suicide?

Mitchell S. Jackson 45:36
I think Evan did a suicide.

Traci Thomas 45:38
Okay. See, I wanted him to murder Evan too. I just felt his-

Mitchell S. Jackson 45:44
His murder was guns and Evan had the pills and no one else knew that Evan had the pills. I think besides canvas, so why would the appeal remember they said the appeals were like, out of a bag or something near or something. So I think that’s like he unless he put a gun to his head and said Take these seven pills.

Traci Thomas 46:06
I thought maybe he like drugged him, like put a lot of pills in a drink or something. Because remember, Evan was like really sucking up to Bob. And so I thought that argument. But what was the argument?

Mitchell S. Jackson 46:18
I think it was because Evan didn’t get a chance to lead.

Traci Thomas 46:20
Remember, he wanted to just serve one guy who could-

Mitchell S. Jackson 46:23
lead right?

Traci Thomas 46:25
To walk around. I’m like, why did he get lost?

Mitchell S. Jackson 46:28
Is one, okay? Because he felt sorry, Candace. And I owe that he couldn’t. Like he betrayed Candace thinking it was going to be better for him. And he was living in an equal Hill. So you messed up Candace life, you still messed up your life. And I feel like that guilt because remember, he was like he couldn’t look at her when he was walking around. And I think he was really overcome with guilt.

Traci Thomas 46:56
Oh, that’s such a better reading than a second murder. Okay, I’m gonna go with that. I think it was his guilt. I really like that. I think that was right.

Mitchell S. Jackson 47:06
Answers, we need. We need answers.

Traci Thomas 47:09
Ok, but would you really want answers? Yeah, no, me neither. Me neither.

Mitchell S. Jackson 47:15
Before we get to your next question. Can we talk about Michael? Because I liked Michael.

Traci Thomas 47:20
Michael, the owner of Spectra.

Mitchell S. Jackson 47:22
Yes, I think he’s a good guy.

Traci Thomas 47:25
He’s a family man, family,

Mitchell S. Jackson 47:26
Family man. He doesn’t go for the kid ever. When she’s about to quit the first time. He’s like, Are you sure?

Traci Thomas 47:32
Yeah.

Mitchell S. Jackson 47:32
Maybe you should think about this. And, you know, everybody can do what they want. And you’re good at this thing. And yeah, she comes back and then to give her that settlement because they could have he could have tricked or he could have been like, well, you know what we’re actually folding on November 29. And you don’t get the check. But the money came through. So I felt like he actually cared about his workers.

Traci Thomas 47:59
Okay, I see that I see that reading. But I see that reading. I don’t disagree with it. I’m just gonna throw out another option. Okay. Michael is a capitalist, and he is the face of business in this book. And he is the one owner of a company that we actually get to know. And what do we know that he does, he has a lazy boy, fancy chair in his office for sleeping. He’s got a beautiful office, he convinces his worker who wants to quit and go off and do bigger and better things that she should stay because she’s not gonna be worth it. She’s not gonna be able to do what she wants to do.

Mitchell S. Jackson 48:34
She didn’t have a plan, though. It isn’t. He didn’t come to do what she wants to he convinced her not to leave.

Traci Thomas 48:40
Yes. Sometimes you just need freedom and space to like, get out into the world. And he was like, No, keep working for us. And then he convinces her to stay and die in the office so that he can go home and be with his family.

Mitchell S. Jackson 48:53
But he offered her to her and he said, Look, don’t sign this right now. I need you to go read this over cuz she was like, let me sign she was like, no, no, no, I want you to go read this over anything. Like that’s not me.

Traci Thomas 49:05
Unless that’s like, he’s like a benevolent slave owner. You know, one of those. The nice, the nice owner of a business that has a high rise in New York City. I did like him. I did. I didn’t dislike him. But I also was like, Michael with his little HR being like, you know, look it over and her being like, No, I’m gonna do it. I mean, he did sort of dissuade, so maybe he had a conscience. But he didn’t make a huge impression on me if I’m being honest.

Mitchell S. Jackson 49:34
Okay. Well, I just thought he was gonna be like a shit dude. And he turned out to be like, of all the men that we meet in this story.

Traci Thomas 49:42
The best the best. Really? Yeah, definitely the best besides her dad. Yes, yeah. Yeah. Which we don’t technically meet him but like in her memory, he’s, he’s the best even though he lets the mom be the bad guy. And he just gets to have KFC with her. Butt and Pepsi. So who knows? can’t be trusted. I do want to talk about the title and the cover because I think we’re sort of running out of time. The first time the title comes up is on page 136, at least to my reading, I might have missed it before, where she talks about Jonathan’s Job and his severance policy changing. And like them, keep them as he’s like, works in media. And they keep firing. Yeah, the older people because they keep changing the severance policy so that the old people quit. And then basically, it’s like a bunch of junior employees. And then the second time it came up is in that KFC he’s seen with the dad on 188. And the dad has sever has severance finally has severance from China. And I thought it was really interesting that she uses it in those two different ways. But then I wasn’t sure what she meant for the title of this book. But I’m not sure why this book is called severance necessary.

Mitchell S. Jackson 50:58
I actually hadn’t thought that much about it. But when you said that I was thinking about you need Severance in order not to be nostalgic.

Traci Thomas 51:11
Right, that hard break-

Mitchell S. Jackson 51:13
Because anybody that don’t have the heartbreak in this book is dying. So there’s something about that, you know, looking forward, not looking back, not trying to revisit and like severance is a break from the past.

Traci Thomas 51:29
And to that point, she says about her dad, in the sentence where she says her dad, she says my father rarely spoke of the past. And perhaps it was only after having officialized his severance from China that he felt free to speak openly of his life there. So that really goes to your point of like, it’s not until he’s fully American. Yeah, American eyes that he can even look back. Yeah, that’s good, Mitch. Aw. Do you gotta pull it sir? This is why that right there. call those people tell them we need another. What did you think of the cover? And I was like a sticker. That’s a severance and then link mark, kind of like an introductory sticker at like a conference. And then there’s sort of some peeling away at the top.

Mitchell S. Jackson 52:17
Oh, I remember in the beginning, and I was like, I really like it I liked. I like all the aspects that you talked about. And then that is minimalist, too. So So I think it’s like the book. There’s a lot of different things to interpret, right? There’s the Picador sign, there’s the a novel at the bottom of it. Right. Right. There’s the name tag for corporate America. So yeah, I just think there’s a lot of intentionality with this camera. And I think the pink also stood out on stage, you know, they aren’t saying you need to stand out.

Traci Thomas 52:55
I like it aesthetically, like it’s pleasing to my eye. I don’t know that it really captures the book to me. Like I think like after reading the book, I kind of get it but like, I don’t know that this, that looking at this book feels like what the book is necessarily. And I think it’s interesting because the cover designer, Rodrigo Kroll, he’s one of my favorites. He does a lot of the FSG covers.

Mitchell S. Jackson 53:19
And you do blackouts, but-

Traci Thomas 53:23
He might have I don’t know his. I do love that cover. He did American gun, that orange book that came out this year that has a giant ak 47 on the cover. He does a lot of like, he does a lot of FSG covers, and he does a lot of covers that are sort of like minimalist. So I think that tracks I really liked his stuff. So I was a little bit surprised. Because I I’m not sure like I just I don’t think this cover is great. I don’t think it’s bad. It’s just like it’s pink to me. It’s like Oh, my pink book. Would this book make a good movie or TV show?

Mitchell S. Jackson 53:56
For sure. Right?

Traci Thomas 53:58
Yeah, we could make a great series if we go into people’s backstories like I would love an episode on Bob. Yes. Yeah. Like what was Bob’s life? Like? What happened to Bob? I wouldn’t love an episode on Blythe.

Mitchell S. Jackson 54:15
Yeah, the rich Art Girl. Is our girl. Yes, yes.

Traci Thomas 54:19
I definitely think so. And then another thing we do on the show when we when we think something be good. Do you have any idea of who you would cast in any of those parts from from the book? Anybody that you had, like a clear vision in your mind?

Mitchell S. Jackson 54:30
Oh well, you would have to do Candace first, and I don’t-

Traci Thomas 54:35
I thought the girl Stephanie Hsu from Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Mitchell S. Jackson 54:42
Yeah, she’s a great actress.

Traci Thomas 54:44
She is an NYU grad also. So shoutout to us. But I Okay, I was really, I was like who could be Bob? to Bob. Okay. Jesse Plemons. Basically, every time you see him on a show, you’re like, oh, something’s not But he was in Friday Night Lights.

Mitchell S. Jackson 55:02
Oh, yeah, no, you know him.

Traci Thomas 55:05
I also would say young though-

Mitchell S. Jackson 55:08
I felt like Bob was like-

Traci Thomas 55:09
It was like in his I thought Bob was giving like 40s. Bob was sort of giving me like, Ted Cruz politician vibe. It’s sort of a young monster. Like not fully old, which is also like, why are you in charge? Like, you’re not the oldest person?

Mitchell S. Jackson 55:29
I felt like he was kind of, but they’re also in their 20s though to write these. They’re in their 20s. So he still would have to be significantly younger.

Traci Thomas 55:37
Alright, I also thought of Joseph Gordon Levitt, because there’s something creepy about him to me.

Mitchell S. Jackson 55:41
Yes, yes, yes, he’s giving. He’s giving creepy.

And who else did I have? Oh, do you watch the bear? Oh, watch any TV. Okay, well, the lead guy in the bear, Jeremy Alan White, Jeremy Alan White. He is who I pictured as Jonathan. Okay, Jeremy.

He gives he Yeah, that hair. That’s not. That’s Jonathan.

That’s exactly right. It’s the hair. It’s the I look like I could quit my job and do anything I want and go smoke a cigarette at any time. I didn’t come up with a lot of other people. But those were the ones that I was like.

That’s the oh, that’s how we write. Yeah, he got back pocket.

Traci Thomas 56:22
Catcher in the Rye specifically. Oh, my gosh, this was so much fun. Mitchell. Thank you so much for doing this. This was like, I was so excited that you were gonna come on the show. But this is the exact right book for us. Just nonsense.

Mitchell S. Jackson 56:40
Yeah. I appreciate it. Yeah, this is fun. I’m glad I got a chance to read it. Now I can get back in this montage and have a good talk later.

Traci Thomas 56:48
Yes. And then if you find out anything, you’ll have to report back to everybody else. Make sure you go get your copy of fly. And you can get it anywhere you get your books. It’s on my gift guide for some of the best books for people who are into pop culture and sports. It’s a really beautiful book, it’s going to make a great gift for that family member that is going to be on the couch Christmas day watching all the games. That’s the person you want to get the book for. And yeah, everyone else who will see you in the stacks.

Alright, folks, that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening. And thank you to Mitchell s Jackson for returning to the show and being my guest. I’d also like to thank Alana gold for helping to make this conversation possible. All right now it is time to announce our December book club pick. It’s a play. You might have heard of it. It’s called Romeo and Juliet, you know by William Shakespeare, the timeless tale of starcrossed lovers. We have never done a Shakespeare book on the show. But that changes. Finally at the end of our fifth year, you’ll have to listen on December 6 to find out who our guests will be. And on December 27, we will have our book club discussion of Romeo and Juliet. Happy reading. If you love the show, and you want to incite access to it, head to patreon.com/the stacks to join the stacks pack. Make sure you’re subscribed to the stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you’re listening through Apple podcasts, be sure to leave us a rating and a review. For more from the stacks follow us on social media at the stalks pod on Instagram threads and tick tock and Apple stocks pod underscore on Twitter. You can check out our website at the stacks podcast.com This episode of the stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Lauren Tyree. Our graphic designer is Robin McCray. The Stacks is created and produced by me Traci Thomas.

Cherie Marquez https://www.cmediacollective.com/
Previous

Ep. 296 Gatekeeping Around Shakespeare with Farah Karim-Cooper
Next

Ep. 294 People Just Have Never Seen It with Ali Stroker