Doretta Lau's debut novel We Are Underlings pulls no punches with its takedown of hypercapitalist corporations and the class dynamics of workers, managers and executives within a corporate structure, nor with its exploration of the meaning of life and death under late-stage capitalism. At the centre of the novel is Zita Chang, an associate marketing manager at the Nine Circles, a theme park devoted to death and the afterlife, whose coworkers begin turning up dead just weeks before the park's grand opening.