Story: The future: capitalism has spread like wildfire throughout the world. Or is it more like a virus? Schools are owned by corporations, and corporations own everyone – to the point where there are no longer family surnames, but surnames identifying one’s allegiance to an employer or school sponsor. Hack Nike is offered a chance to enter the hallowed realm of marketing in his company when a senior executive, John Nike, contracts him to murder anyone buying the company’s new shoes at a store in Melbourne, Australia, U.S.A. Hack is nervous about the job – and with good reason, since he signed the contract before reading it. He most now kill or be killed, and all to increase the buzz around Nike’s new shoes. When the hit goes down horribly wrong – 14 teenagers are killed – Agent Jennifer Government takes the case personally. Because she too has a young daughter. Because she has a strong sense of justice, even in the face of a Government that doesn’t prosecute crimes unless a victim’s family personally funds the investigation. And perhaps because she has a bone to pick with someone working at Nike – someone who she may overstep the bounds of her authority to get.
Review: Max Barry’s second novel is billed on the cover as “‘Catch-22’ by way of The Matrix” (that splashy thumbnail description apparently lifted from the Kirkus Reviews). Actually, that sounds more like the kind of omnipresent marketing hype that “Jennifer Government” is supposedly making fun of. Isn’t that ironic (don’tcha think)?
On many levels, I really liked this book. It’s been years since, out of the blue, I’ve read a standalone novel by an author I’ve never heard of (this probably doesn’t make me look like a very dedicated reader, I know, it’s just that I don’t read much fiction). But in a few places, “Jennifer Government” reminded me of why that is.
After reading the book, I did a little bit of research on the author, and discovered that he had already signed the movie rights to “Jennifer Government” away before the book was published. Now, this happens a lot, and I don’t have a problem with that in and of itself, except that in some ways that neatly wraps up my stylistic qualms about this novel: it’s more like the novelization of a flashy, barely-skin-deep action thriller. It’ll probably make a better-than-average popcorn flick if it isn’t tampered with too much (more on the likelihood of that later, however). But there just isn’t a lot of meat to it. “Jennifer Government”‘s biggest success is in building its bizarre setting through background details. This is a world where marketing execs think that it’ll give a new product the whiff of danger and intrigue by killing the first few people who try to buy it.
“Jennifer Government” isn’t so much “Catch-22” as it is “Brave New World” through a wacky funhouse mirror. The population is still being duped, the minds of the masses are being influenced relentlessly, only it’s not a totalitarian government doing the dirty work – it’s two “superpower blocs” of corporate competitors slugging it out for public market share. Even the Police and the NRA are corporate entities here, with their own specific allegiances, while the Government holds on to the last few regulatory strands that “capitalizm” hasn’t torn away from it.
Character-wise, the book tracks what seems to be a disparate ensemble of people who, at first, have nothing to do with one another until the book ties everything together neatly in the end. The ending is, perhaps, a little bit predictable – dare I say a little bit Hollywood? More intriguing than the characters is their corporate-driven environment and its slow slide into anarchy as the book progresses. As you can tell, a lot of real corporate names are used here, but while Barry’s “it’s a satire, don’t sue me” foreword barely covers his ass here, it’ll never fly for a movie – and thus, any big-screen adaptation will completely lose what bite the printed version of the story has. There’s a hint or two that what Barry is condemning is corporate deregulation and rampant bending-of-the-law – a worthy message, certainly, but perhaps deserving of a more probing treatment than this.
All in all, cleverly written and an entertaining read, but lacking some depth. But your mileage may vary.
Year: 2003
Author: Max Barry
Publisher: Doubleday
Pages: 321