Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind
A Novel
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3.9 • 7 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A Best Novel of 2023 - Electric Literature and Largehearted Boy
"The novel is a magical-realist office drama infused with millennial anomie, and McGhee’s canny, often bittersweetly hilarious prose reads as if George Saunders infiltrated the Severance writers’ room."
—Rafael Frumkin, Washington Post
"This laugh-out-loud debut is a wildly imaginative, tender and piercing critique of the squeeze of capitalism."
—Xochitl Gonzalez, Good Morning America
"A scathing critique of capitalism that holds onto the humanity of its characters."
—Laura Zornosa, TIME
Jonathan Abernathy is a self-proclaimed loser. . . he’s behind on his debts, has no prospects, no friends, and no ambitions. But when a government loan forgiveness program offers him a literal dream job, he thinks he’s found his big break. If he can appear to be competent at his new job, entering the minds of middle class workers while they sleep and removing the unsavory detritus of their waking lives from their unconscious, he might have a chance at a new life. As Abernathy finds his footing in this role, reality and morality begin to warp around him. Soon, the lines between life and work, love and hate, right and wrong, even sleep and consciousness, begin to blur.
Molly McGhee touches on themes most people know all too well—the relentlessly crushing weight of debt, the recognition that work won’t love you back and the awkwardness of finding love when you are without hope. A workplace novel, at once tender, startling, and deeply funny, Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind is a stunning, critical work of surrealist fiction, a piercing critique of late-stage capitalism, and a reckoning with its true cost.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this thoughtful and surreal work of social satire, a young man lands a strange job fixing people’s dreams. Deeply depressed and drowning in debt, Jonathan Abernathy’s thrilled to land a new part-time government job. His responsibilities are simple: surreptitiously enter the nighttime dreams of American workers and flag anything that indicates anxiousness, sadness, malaise, or any other flavor of unhappiness that might stifle a person’s productivity. If this all sounds a bit dystopian, that’s because it absolutely is—in the funniest way possible. Debut author Molly McGhee’s earnest hero is the perfect character to follow as he journeys (just barely) out of poverty and discovers just how shady his employer really is. Absurd, strange, and oddly sweet, this novel is perfect nighttime reading.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In McGee's darkly comic fantastical debut, an everyman hero attempts to crawl out of debt with a job as a Dream Auditor, which requires him to enter and alter other people's dreams. Jonathan Abernathy, obliviously handsome, downtrodden, and inept, finds employment with the mysterious Archival Office, a government contractor that provides a productivity enhancement service to employers. Jonathan spends his REM sleep cycle entering peoples' dreams, where he identifies and scrubs traumatic memories and other stress triggers—any "inner turmoil" that might surface in the workplace. In exchange, Abernathy receives a meager nightly payment and a fraction of loan forgiveness. Despite a growing sense of unease, he convinces himself that he's doing respectable, important work—even performing a kindness. That is, until the Archival Office's preoccupation with success sends him sliding back into existential dread. Things become even more complicated after he begins auditing the dreams of his neighbor and love interest, Rhoda. McGhee anchors the zany narrative with biting depictions of financial instability. Fans of Ling Ma's Severance will soak this up.
