Man o man, what a fever dream!
The Facts
- Published: July 9, 2024
- Original language: English
- Genre: Speculative fiction, sci-fi, thriller
- Number of pages: 224
- Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Thanks for the copy, guys)
The Gist
*spoiler alert*
Some people are like cosmic vacuums, always searching for other selves to consume.
The story takes place in post-pandemic Florida, where a nameless woman tries to readjust to normal life after a global pandemic takes a sci-fi twist. The government starts giving away virtual reality machines called Mind’s Eye, making people spend more time ignoring their own realities. Sounds familiar?
On top of that, nothing's as it initially seems to be: this nameless woman and her husband live with the woman's mother, who has an infinite number of secrets and seems to be participating in a voluntary human extinction movement. The nameless woman pulls a chapstick out of her seemingly-endless belly button. The nameless woman's sister disappears one stormy night, only to reappear talking about different, alternate realities.
Is it possible for a fever to turn a body so hot that molecules are rearranged? Is out life just on pause or is this pause now our life? The white dog barks. Out dog barks back. Twice for good measure. I wonder what they are saying to each other, in their animal language. All the people wave.
Soul-crushing heat, torrential downpours, sinkholes swallowing the earth, ominous cats, a world-bending virtual reality device being handed out by a company called ELECTRA, and an increasing number of posters dotting the streets with the faces of missing citizens. State of Paradise is as bizarre as the state of Florida itself, and if anyone can write a spectulative novel that seems almost autobiographical, on the perfect edge between reality and fantasy, it's Laura Van Den Berg.
When a story is told to another person it takes on a life of its own; it spreads, contagion-like. The more times a story is shared the more powerful it becomes.
The Author
Laura van den Berg is an American fiction writer. She is the author of five works of fiction. Her first two collections of short stories were each shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, in 2010 and 2014.
*This book was gifted by FSG Books
