[Plura-list] Molly McGhee's "Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind"

Cory Doctorow doctorow at craphound.com
Mon Jan 8 19:46:58 EST 2024 

Read today's issue online at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/08/capitalist-surrealism/

Today's links

* Molly McGhee's "Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind": A haunting novel of debt, work, dreams, and the capitalist nightmare.

* Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.

* This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023

* Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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📛 Molly McGhee's "Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind"

*Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind* is Molly McGhee's debut novel: a dreamlike tale of a public-private partnership that hires the terminally endebted to invade the dreams of white-collar professionals and harvest the anxieties that prevent them from being fully productive members of the American corporate workforce:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/734829/jonathan-abernathy-you-are-kind-by-molly-mcghee/

Though this is McGhee's first novel, she's already well known in literary circles. Her career has included stints at *McSweeney's*, where she worked on my book *Information Doesn't Want To Be Free*:

https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/information-doesn-t-want-to-be-free

And then at Tor Books, where she worked on my book *Attack Surface*:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531/attacksurface

But though McGhee is a shrewd and skilled editor, I think of her first and foremost as a writer, thanks to stunning essays like "America's Dead Souls," a 2021 *Paris Review* piece that described the experience of multigenerational debt in America in incandescent, pitiless prose:

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/05/17/americas-dead-souls/

McGhee's piece struck at the heart of something profoundly wrong in American society - the dual nature of debt, which represents a source of freedom for the wealthy, and bondage for workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/19/zombie-debt/#damnation

When billionaire mass-murderers like the Sacklers amass tens of billions of liabilities stemming from their role in deliberately starting the opioid crisis, the courts step in to relieve them of their obligations, allowing them to keep their blood-money:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

And when Silicon Valley Bank collapses due to mismanagement by ultra-wealthy financiers, the public purse yawns open and billions flow out to ensure that the wealthiest investors in the country stay whole:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/18/2-billion-here-2-billion-there/#socialism-for-the-rich

When predatory payday lenders target working people and force them into bankruptcy with four-digit APRs, the government intervenes...to save the lenders and keep workers on the hook:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/29/planned-obsolescence/#academic-fraud

"Debtor vs creditor" is the oldest class division we have. The Bronze Age custom of jubilee - the periodic cancellation of all debts - wasn't some weird peccadillo. It was essential public policy, and without jubilee, the hereditary creditor class became the arbiter of all social priorities, destabilizing great nations and even empires by directing production to suit their parochial needs. Societies that didn't practice jubilee (or halted it) collapsed:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/08/jubilant/#construire-des-passerelles

Today's workers are debt burdened at scales and in ways that defy comprehension, the numbers are so brain-breakingly large. Students who take out modest loans and pay them off several times over remain indebted decades later, with outstanding balances that vastly outstrip the principle:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/04/kawaski-trawick/#strike-debt

Workers who quit dead-end jobs are billed for five-figure "training repayment" bills that haunt them to the end of days:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

Hospitals sue indigent patients at scale, siccing debt-collectors on people who can't pay - and were entitled to free care to begin with:

https://armandalegshow.com/episode/when-hospitals-sue-patients-part-2/

And debt collectors are drawn from the same social ranks as the debtors, barely trained and unsupervised, engaging in lawless, constant harassment of the debtor class:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/12/do-not-pay/#fair-debt-collection-practices-act

McGhee's "American Dead Souls" crystallized all of this vast injustice into a single, beautiful essay - and then McGhee crystallized things further by posting a public resignation letter enumerating the poor pay and working conditions in New York publishing, triggering mass, industry-wide resignations by similarly situated junior editorial staff:

https://electricliterature.com/molly-mcghee-jonathan-abernathy-you-are-kind-interview-debut-novel-book-debt/

Thus we arrive at McGhee's debut: a novel written by someone with a track record for gorgeous, brutally insightful prose; incisive analysis of the class war raging in the embers of capitalism's American Dream; and consequential labor organizing against the precarity and exploitation of young workers. As you might expect, it's *fantastic*.

Jonathan Abernathy is a 25 year old, debt haunted, desperately lonely man. An orphan with a mountain of college debt, Abernathy lives in a terrible basement apartment whose rent is just beyond his means. The only thing that propels him out of bed and into the world are his affirmations:

* Jonathan Abernathy you are kind

* You are well respected and valued by your community

* People, including your family, love you

That these are all easily discerned lies is beside the point. Whatever gets you through the night.

We meet Jonathan as he is applying for a job that he was recruited for in a dream. As instructed in his dream, he presents himself at a shabby strip-mall office where an acerbic functionary behind scratched plexiglass takes his application and informs him that he is up for a gig run jointly by the US State Department and a consortium of large corporate employers. If he is accepted, all of his student debt repayments will be paused and he will no longer face wage garnishment. What's more, he'll be doing the job in his sleep, which means he'll be able to get a day job and pull a double income - what's not to like?

Jonathan's job is to enter the dreams of sleeping middle-management types in America's largest firms - but not just any dreams, their nightmares. Once he has entered their nightmare, Jonathan is charged with identifying the source of their anxiety and summoning a more senior operative who will suck up and whisk away that nagging spectre, thus rendering the worker a more productive component of their corporate structure.

But of course, there's more to it. As Jonathan works through his sleeping hours, he is deprived of his own dreams. Then there's the question of where those captive anxieties are ending up, and how they're being processed, and what new products can be made from refined nightmares. While Jonathan himself is pulling ever so slightly out of his economic quagmire, the people around him are still struggling.

McGhee braids together three strands: the palpable misery of being Jonathan (a proxy for all of us), the rising terror of the true nature of his employment, and beautifully turned absurdist touches that are laugh-aloud funny. This could be a mere novel of ennui and misery but it's not - it's a novel of hilarity and fear and misery, all mixed together in a glorious and terrible concoction that is not like anything else you've ever read.

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📛 Hey look at this

* 2023 Word of the Year is “enshittification” https://americandialect.org/2023-word-of-the-year-is-enshittification/

* Interoperability, Privacy, & Security https://www.ftc.gov/policy/advocacy-research/tech-at-ftc/2023/12/interoperability-privacy-security

* Paul Di Filippo Reviews The Lost Cause https://locusmag.com/2023/12/paul-di-filippo-reviews-the-lost-cause-by-cory-doctorow/

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📛 This day in history

#20yrsago Civilization arises from agreements about shit https://web.archive.org/web/20040202122931/https://www.londonconsortium.com/shit.htm

#15yrsago HOWTO write in the age of distraction http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2009/01/cory-doctorow-writing-in-age-of.html

#15yrsago Ebook DRM provider goes dark, the books you paid for disappear https://web.archive.org/web/20110902104049/http://www.fictionwise.com/help/help.htm

#15yrsago Hardest-to-understand EULA *ever* when you install WoW on GNU/Linux https://memex.craphound.com/2009/01/08/hardest-to-understand-eula-ever-when-you-install-wow-on-gnu-linux/

#15yrsago Group wants to own trademark on “awareness” of a rare disease https://web.archive.org/web/20090416045613/https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/cdhawareness/

#10yrsago FBI no longer primarily a crime-fighting agency https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/01/05/fbi-drops-law-enforcement-as-primary-mission/

#10yrsago Freedom Maze: brave, uncomfortable YA time-travel novel about race https://memex.craphound.com/2014/01/08/freedom-maze-brave-uncomfortable-ya-time-travel-novel-about-race/

#10yrsago Terror squad yanks 12-year-old out of class over plan to protest at David Cameron’s office https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/i-was-told-by-police-that-i-could-be-arrested-it-was-terrifying-2164835.html

#10yrsago Scan-to-email patent trolls sue Coca-Cola and other large companies https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/notorious-scan-to-email-patents-go-big-sue-coca-cola-and-dillards/

#5yrsago Silicon Valley real estate asking prices fall 12% from peak https://wolfstreet.com/2019/01/07/housing-bubble-trouble-silicon-valley-san-francisco/

#5yrsago Bounty hunters track targets by buying realtime location data generated by T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T https://www.vice.com/en/article/nepxbz/i-gave-a-bounty-hunter-300-dollars-located-phone-microbilt-zumigo-tmobile

#5yrsago Ten years after Juneau ditched water fluoridation, kids racked up an average of $300/each in extra dental bills https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-happened-when-a-city-in-alaska-took-fluoride-out-of-their-drinking-water

#5yrsago An interactive timeline of race categories in the US Census https://www.pewresearch.org/interactives/what-census-calls-us/

#5yrsago More Americans get the vote today than on any day since sufferage https://theintercept.com/2019/01/08/florida-felon-voting-rights-amendment-4-2/

#5yrsago Travel warning: four days until Trump’s shut-down costs TSA screeners their first paycheck https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-07/airports-fretting-over-screener-absences-if-shutdown-continues

#5yrsago Canada’s housing market is slowly but surely imploding, and Canadians are more exposed than the US was in 2008 https://macleans.ca/economy/realestateeconomy/this-is-how-canadas-housing-correction-begins/

#5yrsago America’s Fiber Future: Susan Crawford on how America’s wired future is slipping away https://memex.craphound.com/2019/01/08/americas-fiber-future-susan-crawford-on-how-americas-wired-future-is-slipping-away/

#5yrsago Trump gave AT&T a $20B tax break and killed Net Neutrality, now they’re prepping mass layoffs https://www.vice.com/en/article/nepxeg/atandt-preps-for-new-layoffs-despite-billions-in-tax-breaks-and-regulatory-favors

#5yrsago The Science Fiction Writers of America inducts William Gibson as its next Grand Master https://nebulas.sfwa.org/sfwa-announces-newest-damon-knight-grand-master-william-gibson/

#1yrago Naomi Novik's incredible, brilliant, stupendous "Temeraire" series  https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/08/temeraire/#but-i-am-napoleon

#1yrago Social Quitting https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/08/watch-the-surpluses/#exogenous-shocks

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📛 Colophon

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

* A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

* Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025

* The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024

* Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

* Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

Latest podcast: The Internet’s Original Sin https://craphound.com/news/2023/12/17/the-internets-original-sin/)

What the Future will Bring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_Vq8qW2A8I

Upcoming appearances:

*  Speculating Our AI Future with Cory Doctorow, Ken Liu, and Martha Wells
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ssyUYErCTB-rzEz_Vhc7cw#/registration

* Internet Con (Peculiar Book Club), Jan 11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5UvzuJ1R4I

* Books & Books (Coral Gables, Florida), Jan 22
https://www.booksandbooks.com/event/in-person-an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/

* The Lost Cause at Otherland (Berlin), Jan 30
https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/autor-innenabend-mit-cory-doctorow.html

Recent appearances:

* What the Future will Bring (Homeless Romantic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_Vq8qW2A8I

* Talking "The Lost Cause" with Warren Mosler (MMT Podcast)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-182-cory-95211955

* Words of the Week
https://youtu.be/mq0kSdzSjfc?si=zFMDsrXpHVqNGcb8&t=5232

Latest books:

* "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)

* "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

* "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.

* "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The *Washington Post* called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

* "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

* "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

Upcoming books:

* The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024

* Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025

* Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025

This work - excluding any serialized fiction - is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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"*When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla*" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla
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