A Tuesday, on the train, in the evening, after work. The train smells of: humans and ruin, bad breath, old sweat, rotten fruit. Through the dirty window, San Francisco in winter: cold sunset over glinting water, dark hills dusted with lights, the black silhouettes of palm fronds clawing at the fading pastel sky.
The train is full of Believers. I’m not one of them. The Believers have wan skin and glassy eyes. They wear: wind jackets with tech logos, raw denim, canvas sneakers, sustainable ballet flats. Their white plastic earbuds override the sound of real life, their faces buried in their screens. They do not speak or make eye contact. They aren’t really here. The train is full of husks.
I act like one of them. Slow, sad music plays through my earbuds. The song makes the commute feel like a movie. With each flash of scenery, the train carries me farther away from the office. Each day here presses the life out of me. On the way home, I am silent, flat, pulped.
— Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe: A Novel (Scribner, July 11, 2023)
Image & Book Review by Vivian Manning-Schaffel in Shondaland (July 11, 2023): In Her New Novel, ‘Ripe,’ Sarah Rose Etter Shows the Pitfalls of a Hyper-Capitalist System. Etter’s latest novel is a poignantly tragic, absurdist view of the “late-capitalist hellscape” that is grind culture.
