First published 1997
Emi works as a television news executive, constantly hunting for the next big story. Gabriel reports for a newspaper, equally obsessed with breaking news. Both are Asian-American and Latino professionals living in a media-saturated world where information moves at breakneck speed. They race from story to story, deadline to deadline, completely absorbed in their careers. Around them, reality begins to fracture and collapse in increasingly bizarre ways. The world transforms into something unrecognizable, but Emi and Gabriel remain so fixated on their professional pursuits that they barely register the apocalyptic changes happening right in front of them. Their single-minded focus on news gathering blinds them to the larger catastrophe unfolding. This creates a darkly comic tension between their relentless careerism and the supernatural chaos consuming everything else. The story explores how modern media professionals can become so consumed by chasing information that they lose sight of actual reality.
Genres: american-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: dark, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, obsession, unreliable-narrator
268 pages · Paperback · Coffee House Press