Description: "At the centre of Secret Life is The Building, an office building wherein several factions vie for dominance... Jeff VanderMeer's ecological speculations overlap with Theo Ellsworth's deep-layered style to create a mind-bending narrative that defamiliarizes the mundanity of office work and makes the arcane rituals of The Building home... Secret Life observes the sinister individualism of bureaucratic settings in contrast with an unconcerned natural world. As the narrative progresses you may begin to suspect that the world Ellsworth has brought to life with hypnotic visuals is not so secret after all; in fact, it's uncannily similar to our own."--
Brief description: Jeff VanderMeer is the New York Times bestselling author of Hummingbird Salamander, the Borne novels, the Southern Reach series, the Ambergris trilogy, and Veniss Underground. He writes widely about issues relating to climate change and the environment.
Review Quotes:
"This is a vision of office life gone very surreal, with warring tribes who develop their own language and mice who learn to speak English." --New York Times
"The incendiary collision of two singular talents... Ellsworth adapts VanderMeer's tale of a mysterious building where 'office culture' connotes secret languages and unspoken rituals, and a cherished desk plant with a tantalizing fragrance grows to menacing proportions." --Poets and Writers Magazine "It's impossible to look away." --Alex Dueben, Orion Magazine "Secret Life captures the dark pulsing horror of office life with a bizarre honesty found only in bad dreams and good nightmares. An engrossing, unsettling, beautiful work." --Patrick McHale, Over the Garden Wall "This bizarre, fantastical vision will charm art comics and surrealist lit fans alike." --Publishers Weekly "Unique, striking, and surreal... Corporate culture, capitalism/consumption, social hierarchies, and domination notwithstanding, only a vine flourishes here." --Booklist "An allegory about work life like no other." --NOW Magazine