Jennifer Government

Product Description Jennifer Government is Here to Help!In Max Barry’s twisted, hilarious vision of the near future, the world is run by giant American corporations (except for a few deluded holdouts like the French); taxes are illegal; employees take the last names of the companies they work for; The Police and The NRA are publicly-traded security firms; the U.S. government may only investigate crimes if they can bill a citizen directly. It’s a free market paradise!Hack Nike is a lowly Merchandising Officer who’s not very good at negotiating his salary. So when John Nike and John Nike, executives from the promised land of Marketing, offer him a contract, he signs without reading it. Unfortunately, Hack’s new contract involves shooting teenagers to build up street cred for Nike’s new line of $2,500 sneakers. Scared, Hack goes to The Police, who assume he’s asking for a subcontracting deal and lease the assassinations to the NRA.Soon Hack finds himself pursued by Jennifer Government, a tough-talking agent with a barcode tattoo under her eye and a rabid determination to nail John Nike (the boss of the other John Nike). In a world where your job title means everything, the most cherished possession is a platinum credit card, and advertising jingles give way to automatic weapons in the fight for market share, Jennifer Government is the consumer watchdog from hell.Jennifer Government is the kind of novel that can become a byword--a Catch-22 for the New World Order, a satire both broad and pointed, deeply funny and disturbingly on-target.From the Hardcover edition. From Publishers Weekly The most unnerving thing about Max (formerly Maxx) Barry's new novel is that its hyperbolic vision of the not too distant future doesn't seem too far out there at all. The world is run by giant corporations who literally go to war with one another; Australia and the U.K. are annexes of the United States; the police are for sale to the highest bidder; and employees take the last name of their employers. Thus, the cast of characters includes John Nike, Georgia Saints Nike (she volunteers at the Church of Latter-Day Saints), Billy NRA, Buy Mitsui, Hayley McDonalds, and so forth. Jennifer Government, a former advertising executive turned government agent, is hot on the trail of the villainous John Nike for murder. As the mastermind of the latest Nike campaign, he planned the murder of 14 teenagers in order to build up the street reputation for Nike's new $2,500 sneaker, Mercurys. Frederick's reading of this wacked-out morality play is first-rate. His obvious enjoyment of the satire fuels his performance. Especially entertaining are his stereotypical foreign accents, which would seem out of place under most circumstances, but they fit the comic book-type characters waging chaos in this saga like an Aris glove.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Yes, the eponymous heroine really does work for the government. In a world where corporations run everything, even giving employees their surnames, Jennifer steps in to help Hack Nike, who has unwittingly contracted to shoot teenagers wearing a classy brand of sneakers. You weren't expecting anything ordinary from the author of Syrup, were you? Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review "Wicked and wonderful. . . . [It] does just about everything right. Fast-moving, funny and involving."—The Washington Post Book World“Funny and clever. . . . A kind of ad-world version of Dr. Strangelove. [Barry] unleashes enough wit and surprise to make his story a total blast.” —The New York Times Book “May be the most fun you’ll find in a bookstore this year. . . . Full of wit, humor and imagination, Jennifer Government ultimately pulls off its over-the-top conceit.”—Time Out New York“A riotous satirical rant. . . . [Its characters’] excesses . . . make Barry’s world of unregulated corporate greed and unrelenting consumerism so frightening and funny.”—