We Are Underlings (A Novel)

A provocative black comedy of mystery, hijinks, and absurdist despair set at the only theme park devoted to death, dying, and the afterlife

Zita Chang’s job—marketing death for the twenty-first century—is just like everyone else’s entry-level position in a corporate machine. While she’s grinding away, she’s determined not to let her grief over the death of her father interfere with her work. But being a Nine Circles employee comes with perks: she can ask the Afterlife team to replace Siri with her dead dad’s voice so that he can give her the advice she never wanted when he was alive.

Just when Zita feels the drudgery can’t get any worse, the Nine Circles calls an emergency meeting nine weeks before the park’s grand opening to drop a shocking bomb: not only has their executive director died under mysterious circumstances, but Zita and her coworkers are charged with programming his reanimated body to keep the launch on schedule. Can Zita pull this off? Why have a few other colleagues recently dropped dead too? And couldn’t this meeting have been an email?