Grey Area (Will Self)

The latest collection of short stories by Will Self explores a world so saturated with sensory stimulation its inhabitants are immune to it. In the minds of his characters, vastly complicated interior worlds and conspiracies are formed as protection against the monotony and emptiness of life. In the title story, a stenographer works for a company whose policy is to consume its own products, leading to the spiritual consumption of everyone who works for it. For Self's characters, reality is a virtual reality, imagined into existence as relief from the vapidity of themselves.