Very enjoyable, this. A few months ago, I somehow ended up at Thomas's website (by way of either an interesting writeup or a rave review - possibly both at once) and was intrigued enough to put her on that mental 'watch' list that we all carry around; spotted PopCo at the library the other day and finished it yesterday with a rush. It's got a brilliant first chapter, establishing the setting and the distinctive voice of the narrator, the eccentric Alice Butler (who is the best thing about the book). Written in the present tense, like the rest of the novel, it reminds me of the Hélèna Villovitch story in the "Translation" Meanjin which made such an impression on me with its spiky, somehow airy accretion of details and offhandedly commented-upon impressions. The whole novel continues in much that same vein; moreover, it's totally hip and very contemporary, but never distractingly or irritatingly so (and I am particularly sensitive to that kind of stuff!).
The various threads are woven together interestingly, even if the ending suffers slightly from a sense of being overly neat. Two main threads - Alice's adventures as a 'creative' at one of the world's largest toy manufacturing companies along with a handful of others at a corporate retreat to which they've been assigned for the purpose of coming up with a new product which will crack the difficult 'teenage girl' market, and the mysterious necklace given to her by her father which supposedly contains the key to a hitherto unbroken code revealing the location of a hundreds of years old cache of pirate treasure (the latter of which involves her earlier life being related in episodes throughout the main narrative, which go a long way towards fleshing out her present-day character). Strong anti-corporate message comes through - no surprise that Thomas words up No Logo in the acknowledgements. Will definitely be reading more of her stuff.
By the way, is it just me, or is 'Scarlett Thomas' a great name?
