Super Sad True Love Story

by philg

Super Sad True Love Story is an interesting book that I’ve just started. The author has extrapolated from current trends to create a near-future that has the following characteristics:

  • The dollar has been devalued about 50:1 against the yuan, which has become the world’s reserve currency, along with “northern euros” (there might be a southern euro, but nobody wants it)
  • The U.S. is no longer a desirable place for emigrants, except for a handful of Albanians. U.S. consulates worldwide have posters saying “the boat is full, amigo”.
  • Women shop for a brand of clothing called “JuicyPussy”
  • The general decline of economic activity in the U.S. has led to a lot of mergers, resulting in UnitedContinentalDeltamerican (which operates “peeling 737s” against “sleek new dolphin-nosed China Southern Airlines planes”) and LandO’LakesGMFord.
  • there are tanks and armored personnel carriers at airports and in cities throughout the U.S. with National Guardsmen performing various security checks; most of the active duty soldiers are bogged down in a disastrous war against Venezuela
  • Immigrants with poor credit ratings are deported; those who stay in the U.S. find that they have done worse than relatives who remained back in the home country
  • People get their news on mobile phones from a service called “CrisisNet”
  • Potemkin Villages are set up when the Chinese central bankers come to visit to see if the U.S. will ever be able to repay any of its debts to China

The political system of the U.S. has changed into a single-party state, with everyone asked to join the Bipartisan Party. A powerful new agency, the American Restoration Authority, administers a lot of new government powers and fills the country with signs that end with slogans such as “Together We’ll Surprise the World!”

[I’ve finished the book now. The last two-thirds aren’t as thought-provoking as the first third, but it is a well-written novel. Is the author’s vision of New York City strange? Not as strange as the reality, e.g., this woman complaining about a guy who crushed her Dodge Charger by falling on it from 400′ and surviving.]

7 thoughts on “Super Sad True Love Story”

  1. According to Bob Cringely, illegal immigrants actually have excellent credit, and enhance the credit ratings of the Americans whose SSN they steal in order to function. They don’t want to be caught, so they make sure they pay their bills on time, which is more than can be said of the average citizen. The utilities know what is going on, but turn a blind eye as long as they get paid:

    http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20071109_003391.html

  2. So, in the future, will new cars smell like butter? Or will butter become marked up to sell cars cheaper? 🙂

    Seriousness aside, if the only two countries doing well seem to be the EU, and China, two countries that you hear constantly about that America is turning in to, what are we doing wrong? Do we suck at even being socialist?

    Other than that, this book (from you and Amazon) seems interesting; you always seem to pick them well, Philip.

  3. Fazal: In the novel’s world, I don’t believe that immigrants had especially bad credit ratings. It was only that those who did have bad ones were deported.

    Josh: It’s only a novel! And it wasn’t the whole EU that was doing well, just the northern part. So the novel isn’t evidence that we’re doing anything wrong. Like other fiction, it shows us what it would feel like if certain events transpired (e.g., the downward trajectory of the U.S. economy continued).

  5. Azur: Super Sad True Love Story is not as dark as Children of Men. In the novel, much of the rest of the world is prospering, e.g., China, Brazil, Russia, India, northern Europe. The U.S. really isn’t doing all that badly, either, mostly relatively poorly compared to dynamic economies elsewhere in the world. With a growing population, that means individual Americans are gradually getting poorer (in the novel, though I guess also in reality right now) and also the distribution of wealth is uneven, with government-favored groups getting the lion’s share.

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