In a world full of ‘Plastic,’ debut novel asks what we can believe in

The world created in Scott Guild’s debut novel “Plastic” is embroiled in authoritarianism, nuclear war, climate change, terrorism, invasive technology, racism …

Now imagine that environment populated by Barbie dolls, albeit a generic version (called “figurines”) with similar composition, nylon hair, hinged joints and lack of blood when injured. In the way they experience life, though, the figurines in “Plastic” are like humans — even when they fall in love with waffles or develop “Brad Pitt Disease,” in which the afflicted slowly turn to ash.

To cope with the dystopia they live in, figurines look to the Church of Divine Acceptance (CODA), a TV show called “Nuclear Family,” mood-altering substances known as “zing-sticks” or anxiety medication such as “SettleSelf” or “ChillDude.” The ultimate escape is owning a Smartbody. It allows users to enter the limitless virtual landscape, and figurine Erin James sells the devices — along with the nasty job of cleaning rentals — at Tablet Town.

Late to work one day because of backed-up traffic around military checkpoints, Erin pulls into Tablet Town’s parking lot and nearly becomes a victim of terrorism when a bomb goes off in the store. She’s not injured, but her co-worker Owen is inside. As Erin checks the Smart Survivor app on her phone to see if he’s OK, a Good Samaritan Alert pops up and leads her to Jacob, a legally blind figurine who needs her help.

Up to this point, Erin has been “blummo” (along with peculiar slang, figurines’ speech is truncated, characterized by a lack of articles and “to be” verbs). She’s lost nearly everything: her boyfriend to an unusual breakup, her sister to a terror group and her father to Brad Pitt Disease. The encounter with Jacob will change her life completely, whether she’s ready or not.

Much of “Plastic” reads like a script for a TV show – “The episode opens on a plastic woman driving home from work” – with scene changes and camera movements included. Erin narrates sections: Voice-over is denoted with italics; a different font is used when she speaks directly to the camera. Sometimes a spotlight comes up and she sings.

(Guild, songwriter and guitarist for the “neo-new wave” band New Collisions, created “Plastic: The Album” to accompany the text. Intense, techno-ish and repetitive, the music doesn’t particularly enhance the reading experience beyond gimmickry, although “Boytoy,” which Erin sings after ordering a date from the Hot Date app, is catchy.)

The script conceit is dropped toward the middle, though I’m not entirely sure why, and is picked back up near the end. Woven in are episodes of Erin’s favorite TV show, “Nuclear Family,” about a figurine and a waffle who fall in love as nuclear war looms, adding layers that amplify the notion of surveillance. Who is watching who or what, and why?

In “Plastic,” the collision of figurines and the apocalypse is timely, coming as it does on the heels of “Barbenheimer.” It’s a weird, sometimes puzzling and complicated book, to be sure, but an affecting one with way more depth and humanity than its title would let on.

Maren Longbella is a Star Tribune copy editor.

Plastic

By: Scott Guild.

Publisher: Pantheon, 304 pages, $28.