Merger (Paperback)

John Schertzer

ISBN 10: 1969900164 / ISBN 13: 9781969900167

Published by Spuyten Duyvil, 2026

About this Item

Paperback. Evoking the satirical acuity of David Foster Wallace, Nicholson Baker, and Helen DeWitt, the bureaucratic dread of Franz Kafka, the entropic sprawl of Thomas Pynchon, and the polyphonic experimentation of Valeria Luiselli, Renata Adler, and Lance Olsen, John Schertzer's Merger deftly depicts the modern office as a horror-scape of techno-capitalist absurdity. In a flickering mosaic of monologues and fractured perspectives, the novel captures the shimmer of thought under surveillance, where cubicles, clouds-both meteorological and computational-and endless data flows shape a world of relentless scrutiny and optimization. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781969900167

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Merger (Paperback)
• Publisher: Spuyten Duyvil
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1969900164
• ISBN 13: 9781969900167
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

John Schertzer’s Merger is a container ship of a novel, stacked precariously with steel boxes of irrefutable language that are an overabundant cargo of insights threatening to roll over and tip the vessel beneath waves of indeterminacy. The streamlined plot takes a small crew of corporate programmers on a voyage to the edge of the known world and shows them the consequences of ignoring the legend on the map that says, “Here be dragons.” The novel wrestles with late capitalism through a quest for healing that is the true calling of sublime fiction.
Jon Woodson, author of To Make a New Race: Gurdjieff, Toomer and the Harlem Renaissance

Evoking the satirical acuity of David Foster Wallace, Nicholson Baker, and Helen DeWitt, the bureaucratic dread of Franz Kafka, the entropic sprawl of Thomas Pynchon, and the polyphonic experimentation of Valeria Luiselli, Renata Adler, and Lance Olsen, John Schertzer’s Merger deftly depicts the modern office as a horror-scape of techno-capitalist absurdity. In a flickering mosaic of monologues and fractured perspectives, the novel captures the shimmer of thought under surveillance, where cubicles, clouds—both meteorological and computational—and endless data flows shape a world of relentless scrutiny and optimization. Here, accounting becomes existential, a practice of justification as much as calculation, while small, luminous acts of rebellion pulse beneath the surface. At once allegory and black comedy, Merger artfully probes the violence of daily life under corporate and technological power, revealing a human vitality straining at the limits of its own quantification, still yearning and reaching for freedom, intimacy, and significance.”
John Madera, author of Nervosities and Nomad Science

About the Author

John Schertzer lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife and fellow poet, Kathleen E Krause, their evil genius sons, Liam and Declan, and their dog Rex. His poetry, fictions and hybrid pieces have appeared in a number of journals, including Big Other, Inverted Syntax, Danse Macabre, The Germ, American Letters & Commentary, LIT, Shampoo Poetry and others. He has taught poetry workshops at The New School in New York City, and edited the criticism section of 2 issues of LIT.