From the Menacing to the Mundane: Workplace Fiction For Fans of Severance

By Carrie McBride, Communications
April 22, 2022
office workers in a large, bright white office

Severance, a taut dystopian workplace drama streaming on Apple TV+, imagines a sharp, bold line drawn between our work lives and private lives. The main characters, in fact, have undergone an extreme surgical brain procedure that separates their awareness and memory of their time and activities inside and outside of work. More than two years into a pandemic that has changed the location and shape of many people's jobs as well as generated more contemplation and reflection about our relationship to work, Severance has hit a cultural nerve.

The show has been renewed for a second season and we have some fiction recommendations for you in the meantime to tide you over. These compelling titles—scifi, dystopian, and literary fiction—portray the workplace on a spectrum of menacing and sinister to mundane and meaningless. 

Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.

Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.