Near-future satire skewers commercialism

By Lisa Parsons
HippoPress.com

"Jennifer Government," by Max Barry, Doubleday Books, 2003, 321 pages

"Jennifer Government," the second novel from 29-year-old Australian writer Max Barry, is a bolt of lightning in the dark that shows you, just for a second, what's going on around you. This book sizzles in your hands.

It's next week or so, and free enterprise rules the world. Taxes are outlawed. People are named for the corporations that employ them: John Nike, Violet ExxonMobil, Claire Sears, and Jennifer Government.

Schools are owned by corporations, so children have names like Hayley McDonald's. 911 won't dispatch an ambulance until they confirm your American Express number, and Government agents won't proceed with detective work until they secure funding from the crime victims.

The wild and crazy ride begins when Hack Nike signs a contract without reading it. After he realizes he's promised a Nike VP that he'll kill 14 Nike customers for their sneakers as part of a campaign to boost Nike's street image, he goes to the Police who tell him they'll take the job off his hands for a few hundred thou. They subcontract to the NRA. John Nike gets pissed, Jennifer Government gets hurt, the hapless Billy NRA gets taken for the ride of his life, and that's all before things really get out of hand.

The cool thing is, these characters are you and me. Billy only wants to go skiing; Jennifer only wants to spend time with her daughter (and catch the bad guy). Poor unstable Violet wants respect, Hack wants to make things right, and John wants money and power-so much that he becomes dangerous. But their world is different from ours; despite the dominance of a few mega-corporations, life is more fragmented than ever. The fine line between freedom and anarchy glows brightly amid the flying bullets and corporate logos.

How many customer loyalty programs do you belong to? How far are we from Barry's world in which companies join forces until there are only two overarching loyalty programs facing off, each bent on annihilating the other? How many corporate-sponsored products has your child brought home from school? How many logos are plastered on your clothes right now? And what's the name of that new sports arena in town?

"Jennifer Government" has moments of graphic brutality, but it offers equally strong glimpses of love, kindness and sanity. Barry beautifully weaves the whiplash action with sharp, and often hilarious, social commentary. It's nervy, it's satirical, it's substantial and it's turbo-charged. It's even important.

It's early in the year, but not too early to predict that "Jennifer Government" will hold up as one of 2003's best reads.

Max Barry has written one previous novel, "Syrup," and has a content-heavy Web site at www.maxbarry.com.

Lisa Parsons can be reached at hippo@hippopress.com