Impostor Syndrome
A feminist cat-and-mouse suspense about cybercrime and Silicon Valley
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- 8,49 €
Description de l’éditeur
Silicon Valley meets Killing Eve in this highly anticipated, razor-sharp novel about women in the workplace, the power of Big Tech and the looming threat of foreign espionage
Julia Lerner is one of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley and an icon to professional women across the country. She is the COO of Tangerine, one of America's biggest technology companies. She is also a Russian spy. Julia has been carefully groomed to reach the upper echelons of the company and use Tangerine's software to covertly funnel information back to Russia's largest intelligence agency.
Alice Lu works as a low-level analyst within Tangerine, having never quite managed to climb the corporate ladder. One afternoon, when performing a server check, Alice discovers some unusual activity and is burdened with two powerful but distressing suspicions: Tangerine's privacy settings aren't as rigorous as the company claims they are and the person abusing this loophole might be Julia Lerner herself. Now, she must decide what to do with this information - before Julia finds out she has it.
'A skilled satirist of the Northern California dream' - Harper's Bazaar
'Impostor Syndrome encapsulates our Facebook anxieties perfectly' - The Millions
'A smart page-turner' - Oprah Daily
'A propulsive spy thriller and a sharp take on the illusion of the American Dream' - People
'Wang restyles Silicon Valley's famed "toxicity" around gender and race into actual poison, and translates workplace politics into a caper of geopolitical consequence. Impostor Syndrome, like its two heroines, wears its greatness lightly' - New Republic
'The Silicon Valley spy novel we've all been waiting for, with a side order of biting satire and furious feminism' - Crime Reads
'Electrifying... you'll be glued to the pages the entire time' - The Skimm
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wang (Family Trust) leavens this glossy tale of corporate espionage with savvy takes on cultural assimilation in contemporary America. Julia Lerner, plucked from a Russian orphanage by intelligence agent Leo Guskov, has been groomed to infiltrate Silicon Valley social media giant Tangerine. Julia's rise to COO—a position that gives her access to sensitive data on Tangerine's billions of users—sounds an alarm for Alice Lu, a Chinese American member of Tangerine's staff, who is mortified to discover that a data breach she flags in the company's system is linked to Julia's private account. Julia and Alice's pas de deux drives the plot and gives Wang ample space to reflect on modern corporate attitudes toward gender, ethnicity, and the American dream's appeal to socially disadvantaged members of minority groups and to foreign nationals who, in this case, work to undermine the very country whose values and opportunities they are eager to embrace (in their own ways, Julia and Leo develop a preference for the possibilities that America has to offer). The story builds to a number of dramatic moments that happen offstage, somewhat diminishing the dramatic impact, but Wang's depictions of office politics and geopolitical dynamics are spot-on. This offers plenty of grist for reader rumination.
