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Lunch Eater
Brian is a public servant. He is his career and his career is him. He spends his days besieged by coworkers that he believes he is far better than.
The politicians put demands on his time and sanity that he wishes he could live without. Someone in the office is stealing lunches from the communal fridge.
As a mysterious virus sweeps across the world, sending people insane, Brian and his team work to protect the economy. Brian knows they can save the world and maybe they can, if only his team stops getting in his way.
Part workplace comedy, part cosmic horror, part reflection on the global pandemic, Lunch Eater will speak to anyone who has ever hated their job or just tried to get through the day.
The politicians put demands on his time and sanity that he wishes he could live without. Someone in the office is stealing lunches from the communal fridge.
As a mysterious virus sweeps across the world, sending people insane, Brian and his team work to protect the economy. Brian knows they can save the world and maybe they can, if only his team stops getting in his way.
Part workplace comedy, part cosmic horror, part reflection on the global pandemic, Lunch Eater will speak to anyone who has ever hated their job or just tried to get through the day.
208 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 31, 2023
3 people are currently reading
2 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 24, 2023
This was good! I did enjoy it! Something a little different for an apocalyptic story! A bit of a mad idea for a virus end of the world adventure! Well written & good plot, made it an interesting read! I will look for more by this writer!
November 6, 2023
If you work in public service you will love the dry insider humour! Some real laugh out loud moments.
Amidst a pandemic, getting the job done has to be your priority, right? With the symptomatic taking down others with brutal glee, your final escape from the suffering seems inevitable - but just how long can you fight the urge?
The introduction of alternative narratives didn’t really work for me. I found myself reading back to see what I had missed. But I get their utility in the story.
An enjoyable read and an author I would check out again for his dry humour.
I received a copy from Book Sirens. This is my honest review.
Amidst a pandemic, getting the job done has to be your priority, right? With the symptomatic taking down others with brutal glee, your final escape from the suffering seems inevitable - but just how long can you fight the urge?
The introduction of alternative narratives didn’t really work for me. I found myself reading back to see what I had missed. But I get their utility in the story.
An enjoyable read and an author I would check out again for his dry humour.
I received a copy from Book Sirens. This is my honest review.
January 22, 2024
In classic sociological theory, “bureaucracy” represents an evolved organizational structure based upon a rational division of labor. In practice, bureaucracy is often where rationality goes to die.
In Sean Mackaay’s clever but disjointed satire, "Lunch Eater," Brian Collins is a mid-level functionary in the in the Economics Department of a government on the brink. Despite his erstwhile ideals—“I was going to be a star… I would dazzle them with my ideas”—he’s now figured out that, “In public service if you can’t spot the cowards within one week then it means you’re a sociopath. All of us are one or the other.” Brian concludes that he’s a sociopath—“Not that I used it for evil. I was just apathetic.”
Brian belongs to an anonymous class of public servants whose job is to be “a vessel for the politicians’ words come to life.” Once fast-tracked for success, Brian, now approaching middle age, accepts his effortless insignificance; he gets satisfaction from being well paid and virtually impossible to fire. For the most part, he gets along with his myriad colleagues and his irresolute supervisor through benign indifference. He is relieved to have little contact with the agency head, “The End,” or its political leader, “The Man.” His biggest concern is that somebody has been poaching lunches from the break room.
Brian’s comfortable station in life changes when he gets a promoted to lead a project to create a policy response to an emerging pandemic that manifests in a variety of mental health anomalies. “The Shriek,” as it is known, compels people to set fires in the streets, endorse conspiracy theories, and jump out the windows of tall buildings. Brian feels safe in his office—“my little refuge from the world where I understood the rules”—until the Shriek hits home.
“Lunch Eaters” starts slow and never develops a coherent plot, and some of its stylistic digressions feel more like quirks than literary techniques. However, what it lacks in narrative qualities it makes up for with ironic wit and trenchant satire. For example:
“The service of today is so gargantuan that it cannot be a monolith. It is the broadest of churches that will accept anyone that can meet its low bar. Of course there will be those leeching off the taxpayer and those that are just using it to climb… The service grows and sucks more people into its orbit. Forever growing. Forever consuming. Growing. Growing. The service wants to be all there is… It will eat all of us eventually, as easily as someone opens up a fridge and pulls out a lunch.”
And therein, perhaps, lies the symbolic significance of lunch eaters and lunch thieves. The world may be coming to an end, but, hey, we’ve all got to eat.
In Sean Mackaay’s clever but disjointed satire, "Lunch Eater," Brian Collins is a mid-level functionary in the in the Economics Department of a government on the brink. Despite his erstwhile ideals—“I was going to be a star… I would dazzle them with my ideas”—he’s now figured out that, “In public service if you can’t spot the cowards within one week then it means you’re a sociopath. All of us are one or the other.” Brian concludes that he’s a sociopath—“Not that I used it for evil. I was just apathetic.”
Brian belongs to an anonymous class of public servants whose job is to be “a vessel for the politicians’ words come to life.” Once fast-tracked for success, Brian, now approaching middle age, accepts his effortless insignificance; he gets satisfaction from being well paid and virtually impossible to fire. For the most part, he gets along with his myriad colleagues and his irresolute supervisor through benign indifference. He is relieved to have little contact with the agency head, “The End,” or its political leader, “The Man.” His biggest concern is that somebody has been poaching lunches from the break room.
Brian’s comfortable station in life changes when he gets a promoted to lead a project to create a policy response to an emerging pandemic that manifests in a variety of mental health anomalies. “The Shriek,” as it is known, compels people to set fires in the streets, endorse conspiracy theories, and jump out the windows of tall buildings. Brian feels safe in his office—“my little refuge from the world where I understood the rules”—until the Shriek hits home.
“Lunch Eaters” starts slow and never develops a coherent plot, and some of its stylistic digressions feel more like quirks than literary techniques. However, what it lacks in narrative qualities it makes up for with ironic wit and trenchant satire. For example:
“The service of today is so gargantuan that it cannot be a monolith. It is the broadest of churches that will accept anyone that can meet its low bar. Of course there will be those leeching off the taxpayer and those that are just using it to climb… The service grows and sucks more people into its orbit. Forever growing. Forever consuming. Growing. Growing. The service wants to be all there is… It will eat all of us eventually, as easily as someone opens up a fridge and pulls out a lunch.”
And therein, perhaps, lies the symbolic significance of lunch eaters and lunch thieves. The world may be coming to an end, but, hey, we’ve all got to eat.
October 26, 2023
I will rate it as 4. Sean Mackaay wrote Lunch Eater, which depicts the life of Brian, a public servant who lives day by day with so much love and enthusiasm for food. His life suddenly changed because of a particular event in their neighborhood. Despite what is happening in his surroundings, he still does his best to protect himself, his loved ones, and his enormous appetite for delicious food.
Lunch Eater reminds me of a beloved book that I read years ago, entitled “The Girl with All the Gifts.” However, Lunch Eater presents a neater environment and leaves me with a very refreshing feeling throughout the story. The book Lunch Eater made me laugh several times throughout the story. This is the first time I have read about a character with a big appetite and appreciation for food, just like me. Sean uses a first-person writing style, which makes the story more realistic. The story's pace is just right. When I thought I already knew what would happen next, Sean wrote a different twist to the report, making me read the entire book in just one sitting.
However, some points could have been improved. I found a few grammatical errors. Also, there are one-liners on some pages that could have been edited to fit the previous page and to be eco-friendly. Also, the ending left me wondering if there will be a sequel or if it is up to me to figure out how it ends.
Overall, this book is highly recommended to people who want to escape the average bustling city life for a lunch break with Brian.
Lunch Eater reminds me of a beloved book that I read years ago, entitled “The Girl with All the Gifts.” However, Lunch Eater presents a neater environment and leaves me with a very refreshing feeling throughout the story. The book Lunch Eater made me laugh several times throughout the story. This is the first time I have read about a character with a big appetite and appreciation for food, just like me. Sean uses a first-person writing style, which makes the story more realistic. The story's pace is just right. When I thought I already knew what would happen next, Sean wrote a different twist to the report, making me read the entire book in just one sitting.
However, some points could have been improved. I found a few grammatical errors. Also, there are one-liners on some pages that could have been edited to fit the previous page and to be eco-friendly. Also, the ending left me wondering if there will be a sequel or if it is up to me to figure out how it ends.
Overall, this book is highly recommended to people who want to escape the average bustling city life for a lunch break with Brian.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 1, 2023
Lunch Eater is a civil service satire and Lovecraftian horror, written in the style of American Psycho meets The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
Our narrator Brian is a middle manager in the "Service", a dull, bureaucratic, and soul-sapping workplace where those in authority are referred to as "The End" and "The Man". A global pandemic of "mental health presentations" leads all those around him to start losing their minds, with increasingly violent consequences.
Nicknamed "The Shriek", is it a "prion" as the politicians say? Is it a higher power punishing mankind for its self-destructive immorality? Or is it one man's psychotic breakdown in the face of lockdowns, working from home, toilet roll stockpiling, and binge-watching reality TV hit "Pummelled by Monkeys!"?
And who is stealing the lunches from the office fridge?
Sean Mackaay's narrative voice in Lunch Eater is short and snappy making this a quick and easy read. Thematically, Lunch Eater brings to (this reader's) mind Orwell's 1984 and Cronenberg's Videodrome ("Into the black" indeed): two prescient works that are as relevant and powerful today as they were when originally released.
This author is not dumb. This author is an exciting new voice: I look forward to where he goes next.
Our narrator Brian is a middle manager in the "Service", a dull, bureaucratic, and soul-sapping workplace where those in authority are referred to as "The End" and "The Man". A global pandemic of "mental health presentations" leads all those around him to start losing their minds, with increasingly violent consequences.
Nicknamed "The Shriek", is it a "prion" as the politicians say? Is it a higher power punishing mankind for its self-destructive immorality? Or is it one man's psychotic breakdown in the face of lockdowns, working from home, toilet roll stockpiling, and binge-watching reality TV hit "Pummelled by Monkeys!"?
And who is stealing the lunches from the office fridge?
Sean Mackaay's narrative voice in Lunch Eater is short and snappy making this a quick and easy read. Thematically, Lunch Eater brings to (this reader's) mind Orwell's 1984 and Cronenberg's Videodrome ("Into the black" indeed): two prescient works that are as relevant and powerful today as they were when originally released.
This author is not dumb. This author is an exciting new voice: I look forward to where he goes next.
November 30, 2023
The story dives into Brian's life as a civil servant as the job is his life, in the negative sense. Brian informs the readers he has been in this job for over a decade and he's reached a point of exhaustion, no longer caring about his job but shows no interest in searching for an alternative career path. This is a comedic and horror story that revolves around the culprit eating their colleagues' lunch with a virus taking place in the background . The virus is unusual and the story focuses on the emotional and mental state over the visuals. The first-person narrative follows Brian's day-to-day life, but there are other character perspectives featured in the story.
I received a free copy and am leaving a review voluntarily.
Thank you to Booksprout, VRO, and author.
I received a free copy and am leaving a review voluntarily.
Thank you to Booksprout, VRO, and author.
December 9, 2023
I received a copy of this book through Voracious Readers.
I had a hard time getting through this one, despite it being relatively short. Through about the first third, I was tempted to DNF, but didn't. The first part felt like just a guy complaining needlessly. Nothing really happened. There were several typos. Some places had too much unnecessary punctuation, while in others, it was blatantly missing. If the author wanted it to start off with a monotonous, grating tone to match the awful workplace vibe, then I guess he did that. Further into the book, when things finally started happening and could have been more interesting, I was already soured on the story. I did enjoy the interludes about the lunch eating, though. The author has potential to write weird and interesting stories, but the execution just wasn't there.
I had a hard time getting through this one, despite it being relatively short. Through about the first third, I was tempted to DNF, but didn't. The first part felt like just a guy complaining needlessly. Nothing really happened. There were several typos. Some places had too much unnecessary punctuation, while in others, it was blatantly missing. If the author wanted it to start off with a monotonous, grating tone to match the awful workplace vibe, then I guess he did that. Further into the book, when things finally started happening and could have been more interesting, I was already soured on the story. I did enjoy the interludes about the lunch eating, though. The author has potential to write weird and interesting stories, but the execution just wasn't there.
December 3, 2023
The two phrases that come to mind when trying to describe this book are humorously dramatic and entertainingly chaotic. This is a satire about being a public servant but I would expand it beyond public service work to anyone who feels like they are on the “working for the man” grind. Find my full review here: https://likelystory.blog/2023/12/03/r...
December 19, 2023
Not terrible but not great. Backdrop is a pandemic. I don’t want to relive that again. There are some funny office observations and I enjoyed those chapters. It didn’t hold my interesting enough to not put it down constantly but you may like it. Take the time and try it.
January 3, 2024
Not my favorite. Wasn’t awful.
Experience was similar to a one sided argument with someone hyped up on uppers, arguing with themselves.
Good word building- I guess.
Author is skilled with random thoughts about nothing.
Similar to Seinfeld show.
A lot of words about nothing.
Experience was similar to a one sided argument with someone hyped up on uppers, arguing with themselves.
Good word building- I guess.
Author is skilled with random thoughts about nothing.
Similar to Seinfeld show.
A lot of words about nothing.
December 10, 2023
I'm so sorry but really couldn't get into this read... I had to DNF it which I avoid.... Sorry
April 26, 2024
I did not expect this kind of perspective from Cosmic horror. This was fascinating albeit a little bit dragging in parts. Overall it wasn't amazing but it isn't the worst either. This is a good absurdist take on perhaps what the end of the world might be like for those that serve. Fun and engaging but some of the office scenes did feel like too much filler.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews