Hard Copy

September 16, 2024
Veldman debuts with the monotonous story of an office worker who befriends her desktop printer. The unnamed narrator works a low-paying admin job for a start-up, where her printer, whom she inexplicably anthropomorphizes, is the only one in the office she can really talk to. She tells the printer her life story, focusing on her family’s financial hardships when she was a girl and her chronic insecurity among wealthy and cultured people. She and the printer are separated when she’s required to set out on the sweltering streets of her unnamed city to track down a package that was mistakenly sent to the company’s old address. Upon her return, she’s reprimanded by her boss for spending too much time talking on the phone (he’s been overhearing her conversations with the printer), and he places her on temporary leave. Bereft without her friend, she’s not sure how to go on. Later, Veldman switches to the printer’s perspective during the woman’s leave, and the printer reveals how he misses his “partner.” Despite some charming moments, the characterization of the office worker is too thin for readers to feel much of a connection to her. This fails to make good on its promising conceit.