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Jennifer Government
by Max Barry
(Doubleday, $19.95, 321 pages, hardcover; published in January 2003.)
John  Nike
orchestrates a marketing plan that involves murdering random buyers
of a prestigious line of Nike sneakers. Jennifer Government, the eponymous
hero of Max Barry's satirical thriller, is on to him, but to capture
him she'll have to fight her way through a tangled plot that involves
the NRA, consumer savings programs, and a corporate war.
The USA is a gigantic free-market zone that incorporates most of the
Americas, much of Asia, parts of Eastern Europe, the United Kingdom,
Australia, and parts of Southern Africa. People's surnames have been
replaced by the name of company for which they work. Everything is privatized,
including the Government and the Police -- both of which are proprietary
names. Crimes are only investigated by Government or Police if the victims
can pay for it. In fact, the Police will commit crimes for you if the
price is right. Hiring the Police to perpetrate your crime is a good
way to ensure they won't investigate you for it.
Jennifer Government is an entertaining romp that delivers mordant
social commentary and suspenseful thrills, both woven into a cleverly
convoluted plot. Barry's book is timely and provocative, well written
and fast paced, funny and engaged, but never didactic. It's often merciless
with its broad cast of peculiar characters, giving the correct impression
that anything could happen at any moment, that no-one is entirely safe,
and that everyone's motives must be questioned.
It's a shame, then, that the conclusion is such a let-down, so inconsequential.
In the wake of the near-cataclysmic events that surround the inevitable
showdown between Jennifer Government and John Nike, nothing really substantial
happens. Barry sets up these spectacular fireworks, but then lets the
whole thing fizzle out, sadly undermining the bite of his subversive
tale.
Originally published
in The Montreal Gazette, Saturday, 22 February 2003.
Claude Lalumière's Fantastic Fiction
is a series of
capsule reviews first published in the Saturday Books
section of The Montreal Gazette.
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