Candace Chen is a discreet and introverted young American of Chinese origin. She lives in Manhattan in a small apartment and works for Spectra, a publishing company that makes Bibles. She lives like a real New Yorker, spending the little money that does not go in her rent to buy Uniqlo clothes, Clinique moisturizers or drink coffee at Starbucks ... Soon Shen fever, a epidemic from China, spread to New York, then throughout the United States. This unknown disease forces people to repeat their daily routine mechanically and endlessly - setting the table, eating a meal, trying on clothes ... Having become zombies, they die of exhaustion. Left alone in the deserted offices of Spectra, Candace sees New York emptying of its inhabitants and freezing around her. Palm trees start to grow in deserted Times Square ... Striking realism, this novel reinvents the post-apocalyptic genre and questions our relationship to work and the solitude of the contemporary world.