In his spot-on novel Super Sad True Love Story, author Gary Shteyngart posits a dystopian future in which “Onion Skins” are the best selling line of women’s jeans, “butt plug” is a term of fraternal affection, iPhone-y contraptions triangulate people’s “fuckakability” ratings and interactions with government officialdom are disavowed with a pledge to Deny and Imply: to refute existence of the meeting/correspondence and consent to its outcome/authority.
Shteyngart’s characters are used to having their credit ratings revealed on neighborhood poles. The All The News Fit to Print New York Times has rebranded itself the hip and happening The New York Lifestyle Times. People don’t talk, they “verbal.” If you’re not a High Net Worth Individual, you’re literally good as dead. To continue (and steal a graf from Washington Post reviewer Ron Charles):
“Mega-corporations like UnitedContinentalDeltamerican and ColgatePalmoliveYum!BrandViacomCredit dwarf the government's power; health care, education and transportation have been privatized with disastrous effects; citizens live at the mercy of gyrating currency and credit markets; the poor and the old are deported to make room for exclusive Lifestyle Hubs. The United States is a crumbling police state, buried in debt to the Chinese (as if) and stuck in a crippling war with Venezuela (get ready, Hugo!). Our last futile hope is a rousing new marketing campaign: "Together We'll Surprise the World!"
According to one of the characters, the only things people find interesting are humor, sex and shopping.
Shteyngart’s flap copy posits that this future starts sometime around “next Tuesday.” The book was published last July. Already he was too late.
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