Red Ivy Afternoon — Mark R. Brand

Red Ivy Afternoon is a novel of community and disenfranchisement, subversion and revolution in the digital age. The setting is a future we already know: good homes are unaffordable, good jobs are outsourced to other countries, and people anchor themselves to the glowing monitors in their homes to distract themselves. Julian Lightfall, a relatively successful Boston shipping secretary, lives his life from gadget to gadget and bar to bar in a haze of consumerism and boredom. He frequents the Portfolio lounge of the Ultimatum Hotel, playground of the rich and powerful, and throws his attention ineffectually at a sultry and disinterested regular named Christina. Another lone bachelor named Pyndan Calabas moves into the apartment next door. Calabas tells Julian he is a trauma surgeon and the two become friends. But, as Julian soon discovers, his new neighbor hides a secret that will change Julian's life, and the world, forever. Red Ivy Afternoon is a post-modern odyssey through a future that is already upon us.