Candace theorizes that nostalgia somehow triggered the fever in Ashley.
They explore inside, and Ashley soon becomes oblivious and begins performing rote, repetitive actions. Ashley, one of the group members, says that her childhood home is nearby. One night, in Ohio, after Candace and the other survivors set up camp, Candace goes on a brief excursion with some of the other members of the group. Candace feels a faint but persistent connection to China. Candace’s parents are now deceased her father was hit by a car, and her mother died of Alzheimer’s disease. Her parents immigrated to America from China. Candace was born in China and lived there until she was six years old. When Candace worked at Spectra, she often went to China on business trips. The main symptoms of Shen Fever are obliviousness to the world and the mindless repetition of rote, everyday actions. Whenever the survivors find people who have contracted Shen Fever, Bob shoots and kills them, which he sees as a mercy. Bob is a devoutly religious Christian and believes that he and the other survivors were chosen by God for some specific, but unknown, purpose. Their leader, a former IT worker named Bob, leads them and says that he knows of a safe compound outside of Chicago. In the post-apocalypse Candace and the other survivors in her group continue to head west. Candace did not want to go with him, as she was used to her job and her routine. One day, Jonathan decided that he wished to move away from stressful New York City. She was dating a freelance writer named Jonathan, who decided never to work in an office. Candace studied visual art in college and found her job at Spectra unfulfilling, but she remained in the job due to the economic stability it provided. In her late twenties, Candace was working as a project manager for a publishing logistics company called Spectra. The narrative alternates between Candace’s time with these survivors and the events of her life before the destruction wrought by Shen Fever. After an international, apocalyptic outbreak of a disease called Shen Fever, Candace leaves New York City and joins a group of survivors heading west towards Chicago. The novel’s protagonist and narrator is Candace Chen. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Ma, Ling.
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