Immunity

by Taylor Antrim

Overview

In the very near future, a devastating Ebola-like pandemic has struck the world, but for the 1% in New York City it’s an excuse for even more twisted behavior.

Taylor Antrim delivers a thrilling new novel that combines the best of dystopian fiction with a sharp-eyed exploration of class and wealth in the world’s capital. In this fast-paced paranoid, near-future New York City, we meet Catherine, a broke socialite who is getting sick. Desperate, she takes a job with a luxury concierge service that fulfills the most outlandish desires of the ultra-rich—even if that means hunting down the 99%. As the hidden agendas of her employer and his shadowy clients emerge, Catherine realizes things are not remotely as they appear and she finds herself a pawn of mega-corporations and government agents all eager to profit from the cure embedded inside of her.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781941393819
Publisher:	Regan Arts
Publication date:	05/05/2015
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Taylor Antrim is the author of the novel The Headmaster Ritual. His short stories have appeared in numerous publications including Five Chapters, American Short Fiction, and Best American Short Stories. A senior editor at Vogue, he lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two children.

Editorial Reviews

…brisk and tightly plotted…The novel feels effortlessly assembled. Its pacing is precise, its characterization vivid, its prose clear and unfussy. As Catherine's work becomes her life…her situation develops from a satisfying pickle into a gripping whirlpool of intrigue and danger.

The New York Times Book Review - Scott Hutchins

A whip-smart send-up of New York City elite set in a catastrophic future America that feels chillingly real. Devastating and darkly hilarious.

The Isle of Youth and Find Me - Laura Van Den Berg

I’m left haunted by how perfectly Taylor Antrim zeroes in on the zeitgeist of right now. To call Immunity a medical thriller doesn’t nearly sum up what’s contained here: all the panic, the violence, the desire we’re capable of if given the right circumstances.

The Walking People and Fever - Mary Beth Keane

In this smart, scary report from the day after tomorrow, Taylor Antrim gives us a new york we recognize immediately from our anxious daydreams: the broken city after the catastrophe. A paranoid thriller for an age that’s lost its faith in conspiracies, Immunity is both a delivery system for adrenaline and a first attempt at a survival guide for the future.

The Unknowns - Gabriel Roth

Reading Immunity is like coming down with some exotic virus: your pulse races, your temperature spikes, cold sweats set in, and for as long as you’re holding the book, you’re flat-out immobilized. It’s a thrilling shock to the system, an extraordinary novel.

Dear American Airlines and Want Not - Jonathan Miles

"A gripping whirlpool of intrigue and danger."

New York Times - Scott Hutchins

INTRIGUE. IMPUNITY. IMMUNITY.”

"RICH PEOPLE ARE MONSTERS"

"Effortlessly assembled...precise, vivid, clear and unfussy.

A gripping whirlpool of intrigue and danger."

New York Times

05/15/2015
Following a pandemic that has decimated the world's population, impoverished socialite Catherine is enticed into a mysterious job by the charismatic Mercer Kerrigan. One condition of her employment is getting an implant that is supposed to make her immune. Mercer is courting an investor for a sadistic business venture, in which wealthy clients pay to shoot people with plastic bullets. Catherine's misgivings grow, even as she is increasingly drawn to Mercer and his lifestyle. Antrim (The Headmaster Ritual) taps into the zeitgeist by depicting a relatively plausible future in which fears of a deadly disease have led citizens to forgo their civil liberties for the illusion of safety. He also takes a subtle swipe at the economic and class divide and the callous cruelty it can engender. One wishes Catherine were a smarter and less passive heroine: she allows herself to be led into situations with red flags all over them and doesn't ask questions that any reasonably intelligent person would. VERDICT The truth about Catherine's implant is telegraphed so that the reader figures it out at least 100 pages before she does. Despite this flaw, this cinematic page-turner will appeal to fans of dystopian fiction.—Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis

Library Journal

2015-03-17
A nasty post-pandemic New York, with plenty of Patrón tequila and cocaine. Meet Catherine. The daughter of a bathroom fixture heiress and a drug-company whistleblower, she's been "running up her credit card balance, sweeping into parties at Fashion Week, topless sunbathing on the terrace in Positano." Then comes the outbreak of TX, a virulent flu that has killed 300 million worldwide, now barely contained by the government, with all of Newark turned into a quarantine zone. New York is filled with street vendors selling face masks, "propagators" who cough and spit on purpose, and screening centers for the Department of Health. Unfortunately, Catherine's mother spent all the family money before she died, so Catherine accepts a job from a man named Mercer, whose "deep-set teal eyes were like gaudy buttons sewn in their sockets." She'll be working the phones for Pursuit, a luxury concierge service that procures disease-free vacations, restaurant reservations, and such for ultrarich men. But Catherine's been coughing and worries that she's caught the bug, so she agrees to have an experimental anti-viral device implanted in her lower back before she can start. From this point, the plot moves quickly through increasingly violent scenarios—beginning with a disturbing game that involves sitting in the crow's nest of an abandoned upstate motel, doing drugs, and shooting money and pellets at the local proletariat. "The HideAway isn't just fun with guns. It's about satisfaction, power—staying healthy," a creep named Chad explains. Soon, Catherine's on the run from her sleazy employers, desperate to get that weird thing out of her back, with violence mounting to the last page. Antrim's (The Headmaster Ritual, 2007) eerie descriptions of a decaying Manhattan and obsession with smells—"that brown-sugar odor she liked, plus an old, airless funk, like the inside of an old shoe"; "fresh paint and the tart, synthetic aroma of new carpet"; "dried sweat, coffee, and menthol soap"—balance the increasingly headlong narrative. If Bret Easton Ellis wrote a biothriller.

Kirkus Reviews