It is very rare when a work of fiction comes along and wows you not just with its originality but also its audacity. There were moments when reading You Will Never Be Forgotten when I marveled at South's prose. At others, I laughed at her wit, her rendering of the grotesque with the mundane. Stylistically, South probably comes closest to George Saunders. Each story is a perfectly composed sculpture, a mirror held up to the wrongness of America and the direction in which it appears to be going. South's world is one where technology and healthcare are taken to absurd yet not wholly implausible extremes. If there is a point, then it is about the importance of seeking meaning in increasingly meaningless and algorithmically dominant times. Under no circumstances, according to South, is technology a panacea. Nothing can replace fundamental human connection. This should be a universal message, although it would clearly be easy to read a feminist narrative/perspective into the stories. Truly memorable: 10 out of 10.
By Mary South