Kasulke also said if readers have more questions, they can ping on Twitter or Instagram. There’s also a dog food PR crises, strange howls from the beyond, and plenty of workplace antics and commentary on this surreal stage of late-stage capitalism. The entire novel is written in the form of Slack chats and involves a character who accidentally uploads their consciousness into Slack. This workplace comedy is rollicking ride that hits that sweet spot between being experimental and very readable. I’m very excited this first entry in this series I’m calling “Processing” is Calvin Kasulke, whose hilarious debut novel Several People Are Typing was published this August. I think the most common complaint I hear privately from other authors is “No one asks me about craft!” So I’ve decided to be the change and reach out to authors whose books I loved with questions about processes and craft.
) But as interesting as process and craft questions are to writers, it’s something that often gets ignored in book coverage. (Here are some entries on Zadie Smith, César Aira, and myself. Every author has their own process-and often a different process for every book-and I always find it illuminating to hear about them. (Sept.Since this is a craft newsletter, I spend a lot of time talking about writing processes.
For a book about Slack, it’s largely that. However clever the setup is, the satire lacks bite and feels not unlike listening to a friend complain about their job. But none of these or the other internal mini dramas-such as the incessant “howling” Lydia hears or Gerald’s unease-turned-existential crisis-are particularly engaging or inspiring, and things take a series of odd turns after the Slackbot AI takes over Gerald’s body with his mind still stuck in the digital realm.
Kasulke does a good job pulling together the signifiers of office culture-the team trade pet pics and carry on inside jokes with an emoji named “dusty stick”-and they work on a campaign for a dog food company that’s in crisis mode over its product allegedly containing poison. ” Other colleagues also find opportunities to “wfh,” citing a blizzard, or kids, but one of them, Tripp, continues going into the office, where he meets Beverly, a new team member, and the two begin a secret romance. Gerald works from home, trapped indefinitely “within the confines of. Kasulke’s ambitious if underwhelming debut, a fantastical workplace comedy, unfolds via Slack messages sent by employees of a New York City PR firm.
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