Candace and her parents emigrate from Fuzhou, China to Salt Lake City in her youth. The narrative follows Candace Chen after societal collapse due to the Shen Fever pandemic and in flashbacks to her earlier life. Some people are inexplicably immune to the fever and try to survive during the slow apocalypse. There is no cure for the fever, and its spread eventually leads to total societal collapse in the United States. People infected with Shen Fever repeat old routines compulsively, without consciousness and until death. Real world events such as Occupy Wall Street unfold differently due to the Shen Fever pandemic. Severance takes place in an alternate history of the United States up to the end of 2011, before and during a pandemic of the fictional Shen Fever, a fictional fungal infection caused by Sheniodioides originating in Shenzhen, China. The novel, Ma's debut, won the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and was included on many prominent Best Books of 2018 lists. Severance explores themes of nostalgia, modern office culture, monotony, and intimate relationships. It follows Candace Chen, an unfulfilled Bible product coordinator, before and after an incurable infection slowly obliterates global civilization. Severance is a 2018 science fiction novel by Chinese-American author Ling Ma.
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