Discontent, by Beatriz Serrano

A young woman tries to survive the hypocrisy of the corporate world

​Marisa is a creative director at an advertising agency in Madrid, Spain. Everything, it would seem, is pretty much perfect. A well paying job, nice apartment, all in all a comfortable life. But she is going through an existential crisis. Her job, she knows, only exists to push vulnerable people into buying crappy products, preying on their insecurities. The people she works with -  ambitious, sycophantic, and duplicitous - are stomach turning. They make her feel literally sick. To cope she’s taking a steady stream of tranquilizers. There is one co-worker, however, that she admired. Erika. Sarcastic and ironic, Erika wasn’t the type to bend over backwards to please management, and often dropped zingers that made her attitude plain. But she died suddenly, in mysterious circumstances never explained. Was it suicide? A drug overdose? Misadventure? Rather than investigate too deeply, the superficial office culture moves on. Her death is deemed sad, even tragic, but the bland workday has its own momentum that buries such deaths and disappearances.

One day Marisa gets terrible news. Her manager is organising a team building retreat. She will have to travel and stay with the workmates she can’t stand. The trip goes from bad to worse, until Marisa comes up with a plan to subtly sabotage the whole event. 

Beatriz Serrano is a young writer who has written for BuzzFeed and Vanity Fair. Discontent is narrated in the first person, giving the reader an almost stream-of-consciousness ride through Marisa’s dissatisfied mind. The novel is a rancid comedy, with plenty of excoriating lines about the meaninglessness of modern work. It also provides astute observations on the intersection of feminism and capitalism, and how women have been betrayed by its promise.

A withering critique dressed up as a single-woman-in-the-city story, there is much to enjoy in this often heartfelt book. 

Discontent, by Beatriz Serrano. Published by Harvill/Secker. $34.99

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