Jennifer Government (Paperback)

If the recent spate of reality television shows has shown us anything, it's that the only thing Americans love more than acting stupid is watching other Americans act stupid. Following in a close third is that great American pastime of talking about Americans acting stupid.

America is a snake feeding on its own tail.

Australian author Max Barry marries American-spawned media mutual masturbation with an ever-popular target of satire - corporate culture - to bring forth "Jennifer Government", a novel set in a parallel, anti-Orwellian world where governments have little or no power, and corporations do almost as they please.

Barry, a former marketing man himself, knows his way around corporate culture. He also clearly knows marketing, because the book itself, as an object, seems created solely to be sold. The target is a large market niche - nearly everyone has either worked for or patronized a large corporation. Huge corporate scandals break on a weekly basis. Because the book plays the media's favorite game, it was bound to get (and did get) wide critical acclaim.

As the novel relies almost exclusively on plot, a synopsis is in order. In keeping with the theme of the book, here are the premise/tag-lines from the marketing material provided by the publisher:

"Hack Nike is a Merchandising Officer who discovers an all-new way to sell sneakers. Buy Mitsui is a stockbroker with a death wish. Billy NRA is finding out that life in a private army isn't all snappy uniforms and code names. And Jennifer Government, a legendary agent with a barcode tattoo, is the consumer watchdog from hell."

There you have it. Any doubt that these main characters' paths will cross at least once or twice, eventually careening together at the conclusion of the book? Me neither. We know where we're going, so the focus is the trip. "Jennifer Government" is fast paced but takes far too long to tell its story - things keep happening, and you can't help but wonder if some editing might not have sharpened the book's edge. Barry's writing is "cinematic" in style, which is not necessarily a bad thing, except that the movie seems to be one we've seen before.

From the initial action scene, wherein Government (are you tired of the kitschy last names yet?) engages in guns-a-blazin', flyin'-through-broken-glass, Bruckheimer style action, to plot lines and dialog that seem ripped straight from prime time TV drama, the novel fails to deliver on several levels. Worse, Barry tries to throw a critical block by implementing the modern crutch of self-effacing humor: At one point Jennifer Government tells Billy NRA that the story he just related (which we read in a previous chapter), is completely unbelievable. Towards the end of the book, a cliché bit of action is immediately followed by the phrase "it was just like a movie". This sort of wink-wink, nudge-nudge "Hey it's just a silly, made up story" not only insults authors and readers, but especially the poor sucker who just forked out good money for the book. It's writing of the laziest sort.

This lack of seriousness, along with the author's scant storytelling ability, ultimately becomes the book's undoing. A handful of well written scenes amongst the 320 pages hint at what could've been, but by the time a sleazy Nike executive is impaled on the Swoosh door-handle of a Nike town amidst a marketing war gone bad (OH! THE IRONY!), you're about ready to throw the book out the window.

Barry offers no sort of earnest dialog on one of the most important social issues of the day (corporate proliferation) and as such the book doesn't aspire to scratch beyond the surface. Like a first-rate marketing campaign, "Jennifer Government" doesn't want to bring anything new to the table, but is content to merely feast upon and regurgitate pop culture in an attempt to make light of the shallowness of modern society. "Aren't we all just so stupid?" it seems to ask. Maybe - and it's a worthwhile question. Here's one for Barry: "Does this book make you part of the problem or part of the solution?"