The Mere Future

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For a nation that elected Barack Obama as president, here is the first novel of the new era: The Mere Future, by award-winning novelist, activist, and playwright Sarah Schulman, set in a utopian (or is it dystopic?) future vision of New York City. The city has morphed into what appears to be an idealized version of itself, the result of what the new mayor calls "The Big Change," in which rent is cheap, homelessness is a thing of the past, and the only job left is marketing. Advertising no longer appears in public but in the privacy of one's home; chain stores and homogenous culture disappear, and a rugged individualism triumphs. Despite the utopian surface, however, there is a disturbing malaise that infects the population; some openly question how the mayor is paying for such measures, which take place at the expense of anyone feeling anything close to art or emotion, culminating in murder and a resulting trial that transfixes the city. Will justice be served under the new Lifestyle-Appropriate Trial and Sentencing System?Sparkling with witty and provocative social commentary, The Mere Future is a startling vision of the world to come that blows literary conventions out of the water.This is Sarah Schulman's twelfth novel; her previous books include Empathy, Rat Bohemia, and The Child (all available from Arsenal Pulp Press). Her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship and two American Library Association Book awards. She is a professor of English at City University of New York (College of Staten Island).From Publishers WeeklyAuthor-activist Schulman (The Child) painstakingly crafts this meditation on the trajectory of society in the 21st century, but it may serve better as a warning than a novel. When New York's new mayor slowly transforms the city into a utopia through social reforms, the effects spiral out over a poor copywriter, the copywriter's new boss, his girlfriends, their lovers, their lovers' children, etc., in a narrative Möbius strip worthy of an art house film. Despite clever word craft, poetic political satire and biting humor on every page, vague characterization and a meandering plot push this polemic too far toward the abstract and oblique. Even the most adventurous and prose-focused readers will struggle to engage with Schulman's discontinuous style at this length; the only hope is to treat it as poetry, or perhaps modern art. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review"In this dystopian hell-ride of a novel, Sarah Schulman, New York's legendary poet-maudit, grapples with something that matters. The Mere Future is a rare combination of brains and humor, by turns enlightening and terrifying." -Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City"Clever word craft, poetic political satire and biting humor on every page." ?Publishers Weekly"Schulman injects wry political commentary and sly cultural satire into her intellectually dynamic plot with infectious constancy." ?Richard Labonte, Book Marks"Shockingly of the moment ... The Mere Future is set a few years hence "when things are slightly better because there has been a big change," and, as she always does, Schulman fashions a writing style that suits the setting ... [This] is probably Schulman’s funniest book." ?Lambda Book Report