This Is (Not) America

Thirty-one stories. Two countries. One question: what does freedom mean when the people rewriting the rules already own the microphones?

Some of these futures are only a few years away. Others are already here.

A celebrity preacher has built an empire by turning faith into subscriptions, investments and engagement metrics. Then the Algorithm decides it no longer needs him.

Two British men travel to New York for an anniversary weekend and discover that freedom can disappear between one nightclub and the next.

A gay driver breaks down in Salvation, Alabama, where every house flies the flag and staying alive may depend on performing the right version of himself.

A television presenter makes one human mistake in a country that has abolished forgiveness. A six-year-old lays flowers at the Leader's statue and asks why the neighbours didn't hang flags.

Then the book comes home. A mother ices a racing-car cake for a son who isn't coming back. A widow paints her magnolia house purple and burns the nets. A dead man narrates from his own coffin, lottery ticket in his pocket. And a software developer, hit by a bus, discovers the afterlife runs like a council office, ticket numbers and all.

Darkly funny, politically sharp and unexpectedly tender, this expanded edition of This Is (Not) America gathers thirty-one stories about authoritarianism, artificial intelligence, queer survival, corporate control, grief and the private bargains people make to get through the day.

For readers of George Saunders and anyone who finished Black Mirror wanting more.