Jennifer Government
First edition, 2003
Jennifer Government (2003) is a satirical dystopian novel set in a near-future world where corporate power has almost entirely displaced government. Citizens take the surname of their employer, the United States has absorbed most of the English-speaking world, and what remains of government is a fee-for-service operation that investigates crimes only when the victims can afford to pay. The novel opens with Nike executives hiring a low-level employee to murder ten customers as a marketing strategy for a new sneaker launch, creating street credibility through manufactured scarcity and genuine bloodshed. Jennifer Government, an agent with a barcode tattooed under her eye, takes the case.
The novel imagines a world in which every institution, from schools to police to the military, operates as a profit center, and in which the logic of the market has been extended so completely that murder becomes a line-item business decision. Barry is an Australian author, and the book was first published in Australia in 2003 before its US release through Doubleday the same year. Barry created the browser game NationStates to promote the novel, and it ended up outliving the book itself.
Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, boards. New York: Doubleday, 2003. ISBN: 0385507593. #11470.
Fine in fine dust jacket.
The novel imagines a world in which every institution, from schools to police to the military, operates as a profit center, and in which the logic of the market has been extended so completely that murder becomes a line-item business decision. Barry is an Australian author, and the book was first published in Australia in 2003 before its US release through Doubleday the same year. Barry created the browser game NationStates to promote the novel, and it ended up outliving the book itself.
Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, boards. New York: Doubleday, 2003. ISBN: 0385507593. #11470.
Fine in fine dust jacket.