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THE ENHANCERS
a novel
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“There were pills for sinners and scandal-makers, pills for do-gooders and the uptight, pills against neuroses, inhibitions. There were pills for perfectionists and Type A’s, for habitual B-listers and bruised egos. Pills for learning to love yourself, to accept that there’s no meaning beyond the everyday. Pills to cure loneliness, to learn to be alone, pills to stop yelling at sports games, pills to soothe, to make you want to do. Pills to finesse, to forget about otherness, to fill absence, emptiness. Pills for everyone under the sun.”
THE ENHANCERS follows three teenage friends as they encounter the pleasures and alienation that accompany coming of age in a techno-pharmaceutical society. The Enhancers questions who we are when valued most for our ability to process information. With mental augmentation as a baseline: how do we come to know ourselves and what does it take to break free?
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The Enhancers asks, “How do I distinguish between what’s me and what’s chemical?” Animated by the absurdity of a Yorgos Lanthimos film, The Enhancers is a wildly original and contemporary tale about chemical augmentation, memory, yearning, and loss. Imagine the fearlessness and wild imagination of Jenny Erpenbeck if she had a background in the pharmaceutical industry and you might come close to approximating the tremendous brilliance of Anne Yoder.”
–Patrick Cottrell, author of Sorry to Disrupt the Peace
“Fans of Ling Ma and Jennifer Egan, here is your next book. Anne K. Yoder, in a lyrical voice of the many, gives us a haunting tale of pharmacology and a story of boundaries: human, chemical and industrial. Where are those boundaries again? Where does a body start and end? Or, as Yoder puts it, How much information could one memory hold? In a text that is itself a wild, wonderfully written ride through a wormhole, The Enhancers thrills and horrifies with profound ramifications.”
–Samantha Hunt, author of The Unwritten Book and The Seas
The Enhancers experiments with language and ideas the way its characters experiment with chemicals, leaving the reader dizzy with excitement, asking: What is a fact? What is natural (and can it be saved)? Is self-enhancement also self-erasure? In a world where every activity is regimented yet ever-changing outside of one's control, Anne Yoder cautions to be careful what you wish for (especially since you're always being watched and tested). My brain feels like a honeycomb full of bees after reading her latest work.
—Sarah Gerard, author of True Love and Sunshine State
EDITORIAL REVIEWS
"Are there side effects? Oh, yeah . . .. This tragicomic thriller about sinister corporations is highly recommended for fans of Apple TV's Severance or Ling Ma's Severance."
"Yoder's prose is outstanding as she unravels a modern coming-of-age story tinged with some science fiction . . .. There's something haunting in this book that isn't overtly unsettling, but enough to make you question enough about our reality."
"The most impressive aspect of Yoder's debut novel, outside its vivid imagery and wrestling of indication--and warning-label language to suit its ends, is the world-building taken to construct Lumena Hills, the factory town named for the pharma company that's actively medicating its residents. Satire's too easy; Yoder interrogates the fine line between saying no to medication and being in control of one's faculties."
“The Enhancers is a Brave New World for the late capitalist era. … this novel isn’t just another derivative dystopia. Yoder’s often masterful update here is a necessary one.”
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