Is there truly a force stronger than capitalism? This is one of the central questions author Jade Song explores in their new sophomore novel, I Love You Don’t Die. Set in the hustle and bustle of New York City, the plot follows Vicky, a young woman drawn to the allure of the macabre, living above a funeral parlor and working for a dystopian — yet familiar — corporate start-up selling custom urns.
The inspiration for the book came to Song after their work in New York's corporate sphere. “I had worked in advertising for seven years, and working in that field makes you feel like everything is suddenly being commodified and turned into a product that you can buy,” Song reflected. “I kept [wondering], is there anything left?”
Song assumed, naturally, that something as off-putting as death certainly couldn’t be capitalized on, then quickly learned that they were wrong. “There are actually death start-ups; end-of-life planning. I found that really fascinating,” they said.
I Love You Don’t Die takes a deep look at mental health, especially anxiety, as the story follows a protagonist who, like Song in real life, finds herself content, then immediately jumps to catastrophizing.“
At the time, I was really thinking about [death] a lot,” Song said. “I grew up a really lonely, sad kid, and then when I came to New York, I actually found community and real friends. Before that, I wasn’t afraid of death; if anything, I thought it was this really fun, fascinating thing that’s gonna happen anyway, so who cares?”
The book follows Vicky as she cherishes the platonic love she shares with her best friend, Jen, and also dives into a loving polyamorous relationship. Like Song, Vicky starts to worry about death for the first time, seeing it as something that inevitably will steal the happiness she had long waited for. “I was really scared of death, and I was going through a lot of preemptive grief,” Song said of the period that influenced I Love You Don’t Die. “Someday someone I love is gonna die, or maybe it’ll be me first. That’s what I really wanted to explore with the book.”
I Love You Don’t Die is a work of literary fiction that explores preemptive grief, a common anxiety that many people avoid discussing. The novel also gives readers a positive depiction of polyamory, another topic often overlooked or portrayed as deviant in most media.
“Nonmonogamous relationships [get] so much shit in fiction, the news, and even memes,” Song said. “I’ve never seen it to be the demonic thing everyone was setting it out to be. I think I can be a little bit annoyingly contrarian sometimes. So I decided I’m just going to write about it. It’s really not a big deal.”
Song clarified that some of the memes are valid but that all relationships are different and require communication and compromise. “I do think all of those things are really funny and valid, but I also think there can be a lot of abundance and love,” Song said. “I believe there can be a lot of love to go around, and I wanted to also write about that in the book.”
As a Chinese-American person, Song also wanted to explore how their racial identity has affected their relationship with capitalism. “I was also trying to write a critique of advertising and capitalism,” they said. “So much of it felt like the identity was being commodified to sell you products, and I really, really hated it. I had been in so many meetings, working in advertising, where they had to put a person of color on the project. Or it was like, ‘Give me all your community trauma, your identity markers, and then you can put it all in an ad and sell them this product that they actually don’t want.’ That was annoying and disgusting to me.”
When the weight of capitalism, corporations that capitalize on identities, and the fear of death all become too much for Song, they relied on art to keep them grounded. They first discovered their writing talent after struggling, like many Americans, with their mental health during the pandemic. Originally a painter, Song got into storytelling after a friend invited them to a writing group. “I really loved it,” they said. “From there, I just started writing, and it just became this really easy way for me to have that creative outlet, because with writing, you don’t necessarily need a lot of time and equipment that you would for painting or other art forms; you can type on your phone in the subway.”
When the lockdown started, Song took advantage of the time at home and took on the challenge of writing their debut novel, Chlorine, a coming-of-age body horror tale, which hit shelves in 2023. With their art now a product to be consumed, Song had to grapple with the commodification of their creativity.
“That’s the endless issue of being an artist,” they said. “I struggled with this a lot for Chlorine, and my friend, who is a lot wiser than I, said, ‘Art is meant to be shared.’ Art is revelry, and to revel means two or more.”
Still, they struggled most with the commodification of their identity when selling books. Song, like most artists, wants their work to stand on its own, but at the same time recognizes that it’s impossible to create art that represents people in a minority without also aiming to sell them something. “Representation does still matter,” they said. “Heated Rivalry is really wonderful, and a lot of that was about being Gay. It’s an endless struggle, but it helps to remember that your art can reach others and help them through things.”
To love art often means to consume it. If late-stage capitalism and the depressing reality of our dependence on consumption are the kinds of things that keep you up at night, or if you’re looking to read something with positive poly representation — finally — I Love You Don’t Die is a great read. Filled with lyrical prose and critiques of the modern age, this book is worth the price tag.
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