Autofiction. Emily Segal, artist and trend forecaster in her 20s, tries to tell the future by reading the present. Literature finds commercial form in the shape of eXe, a mysterious and well-funded Internet start-up that offers her a job. A conceptual take-over is deployed; gendered power play ensues; queerness incubates; memes converge. Set in New York City, post-Occupy and pre-Trump. First person / mixed media / pulp. Not actually about astrology. Published in 2020.
*A New York Times New and Notable Book 2020*
“Emily Segal is almost mystically attuned to the cultural logic of our era. She lives its pangs and contradictions intellectually, emotionally and somatically – late capitalism’s Simone Weil.” Tom McCarthy
“I really liked reading this book. It’s the longest reply to “where have you been?” you’ll ever get from someone you first met in a skype chat which Emily Segal is to me. It’s a brilliantly written novel of a moment in search of a shimmer, half ‘here’, half digital, an everywhere post branding work place place where few have dared to live and this writer, explorer, critic, philosopher of nonbusiness has done it deep. Segal's style is widely smart, different than deep (always). I mean her Mercury Retrograde is, it truly is.” Eileen Myles
“‘Mercury Retrograde’ to me feels like fiction's next historical leap. It's smart and engaging (and bingeable) and yet it also feels necessary in a way that almost all books don't. It's a signpost that points to where the culture is headed, which is heady stuff, yet there you have it.” Douglas Coupland
Emily Segal (b. 1988, New York, NY) is an artist, writer, and trend forecaster based in Los Angeles. Mercury Retrograde is her first novel. emilysegal.net
