Sadvertising (Ennis Ćehić, Vintage)

In this debut collection of short stories, Ennis Ćehić uses deeply flawed characters to cleverly reflect the absurdity of late-stage capitalism. Sadvertising identifies obsession, narcissism and neuroses as reasonable responses to the oft-insane world of marketing by examining the enormous power of advertising alongside the relative powerlessness of the people who create it. In these fables, a wordless visit from the creative director unsettles an office for weeks; a world-shaking opinion piece receives only a handful of comments on LinkedIn; two strategists make the revolutionary choice to reimagine consumers as people. While most of the stories in this collection are speculative in nature, there are some that end with the intended meaning blatantly stated. These stories finish with a kind of punchline, rather than a more open-ended invitation to look beneath the surface of the text. As this became apparent, Sadvertising sometimes left this reviewer distracted with trying to discern the tone early in subsequent stories, rather than engaging with them fully from the outset. The inclusion of pieces of microfiction throughout amplified this—these are wonderful individually, but cumulatively lose their impact to unevenness. With scathing wit and black humour, Sadvertising offers hope and ennui in equal measure, and challenges readers to interrogate how, and what, they consume. 

Chris Alphonso is a writer and freelance editor from Melbourne. 

Category: Reviews