The world is a dangerous place. In Miles Klee’s Ivyland (OR Books), the author vividly imagines a violent future where a giant pharmaceutical company rules most of New Jersey. Spiked with the lusty, random bloodletting of A Clockwork Orange and Orwellian in scope, Klee redefines and redesigns the Garden State, writing of a landscape where cops are more brutal than the pill-popping gangs who run the highways and memories of a time before drugs and corporations controlled the lives of citizens are getting hazier with every medical induced high. In short chapters that focus on the various citizens of Ivyland, Klee captures humanity at both its most depraved and its most innocent: people who have been forced to live in a not-so-brave new world where weakness is met with death. We spoke with Klee about violence and how it can take us over, Google’s sinister information gathering, different flavors of Coke, revenge and medication.

ROYAL YOUNG: What happens when you become used to violence, even begin to expect it?

MILES KLEE: There’s an acceptance of chaos, a belief in a vengeful God, maybe. You probably stop seeing the causes of the violence as well. That’s why you have places where the cycle is perpetuated so easily.

Read the full interview in Interview