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They Is Us
Tama Janowitz
Oryx & Crake meets Douglas Coupland. An unforgettable vision of the future of America.Years from now America finds itself split between the rich and the poor. The haves live in luxury within the small regions that remain unpolluted while the have-nots inhabit a toxic suburbia full of terrorism, crime and genetic mutations.Perhaps not all that different from today then?They Is Us tells the story of one family from the poor side as they go about their daily lives. Julie has a job as a summer intern at an animal laboratory. She can't resist taking home the discarded mutants and her house is filled with genetic cast offs. Her mother, Murielle, has kicked out her stepfather and now, seemingly from nowhere, finds herself subject to the attentions of multi-millionaire businessman A.J.M. Bishrop. Bishrop is only dating Murielle because he wants to get Julie's underage sister Tahnee into bed.Just your typical American family story.Set against a backdrop of increasingly invasive technology, growing pollution and the President of the USA's impending gay marriage (to be broadcast live across the nation) They Is Us features a cast of unforgettable characters that will stick in your mind long after you finish the book.Tama Janowitz has written a prophetic novel which is funny, and frequently hilarious, but is so uncannily believable that it is chilling to read. This really could be the future.
THEY IS US
A cautionary horror story
Tama Janowitz
Copyright (#ulink_6d5438e1-b89b-59ef-88c3-b9ea77170d61)
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
The Friday Project
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)
Copyright © Tama Janowitz 2008
Tama Janowitz asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9781906321307
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN 9780007380954
Version: 2016-10-05
Dedication (#ulink_73568877-89b3-56db-8a7c-1b837e44771c)
To Fay Weldon and Nick Fox
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Walt Kelly, poster caption for World Earth Day, 1973
Epigraph (#ulink_1e481d28-3b21-5fc6-9ebe-c9db707f58d7)
The Small Loaf of an Artist in Society
Two chihuahuas have tiny pillowcases
pulled over their heads with holes
cut out for eyes and noses.
Are they members of the Ku Klux Klan?
We do not know. Only, they must
itchy in this warm dampness,
this summer sprinkled with peppery
flies over the ash can of our lives.
What has blighted the stout cart-
puller, the homebody, the watch cur,
Beware of the Dog, a sign
leading to reticence in strangers.
All is changed, deranged and gone,
even slouches have a political
roll to fill. This is not a country
for old schnauzers or dull doubters
who muddle and fiddle and refuse
to remember the name of the street
they live on simply because they’ve
changed address once too often
and their furniture grows
molds and fungi in a warehouse
in Walla-Walla Washington. Changes!
Get used to them! Some young rabble
rouser keeps yelling in the parking
lot on Twenty-Third street, where
the organ grinder used to play
O sole Mio just beneath the windows
of our mansion and his monkey tipped
his hat in mock thanks for the penny
that we threw him, although he cavorted
on hollyhocks and crushed petunias in
our Moorish garden, but it’s too late
for giving an artist advice, who
having taken on the guise (gorge
and hackles) of a purebred dalmatian,
is polymorphous perverse now, indeed
always has been.
Phyllis Janowitz
Contents
Cover (#u44f0e5a2-05f6-5646-91a8-2c26c9685607)
Title Page (#u4db0a344-6f54-5f2f-b2b8-c9e052a0dc21)
Copyright (#uac02e335-57d7-5eac-b2f6-5dcc07d8098e)
Dedication (#u2794d7d1-e7ab-545d-b389-a82a378c6065)
Epigraph (#uad551995-cd0d-5703-aec1-45717ecdddce)
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1 (#ulink_b4b98cc5-ed71-543f-8a16-e468a8dc337f)
Years pass. There are still thimbles and Unitarians. The world is the same as it has always been, maybe a little worse. It’s a beautiful summer day, kind of, although violent electrical storms are predicted for later – if not that day, then sometime. And the news, too, is much the same: 40 percent of people can’t sleep; a type of bustard believed to be extinct has been found; war continues.
Slawa is still out there, painting the driveway with black glop. Why did he have to wear his white high-heels? The fool, he’s going to ruin them. Now he’s using his knife to open a second gallon of the stuff. Murielle could easily run him over, but he moves out of the way. She is taking Julie to look for a summer job.
Julie wants to help at the old age home her mother manages, but Murielle says no. Her mother prefers her older sister, Tahnee. Tahnee is fourteen. Tahnee is too lazy to work. Murielle doesn’t seem to mind this, even though she is determined that Julie, who is only thirteen, should do something. First she tells Julie to look up the job listings, but there’s nothing Julie is qualified for except maybe at the Blue Booby Club as a cocktail waitress or stripper if she lies about her age.
