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Chalcot Crescent

This dystopian novel was sparked by the apparent collapse of capitalism in 2007/8. What if the many ‘isms’ that have ‘collapsed’ in the last decades - fascism, communism, patriotism, paternalism –merely go underground? Perhaps they are as much reflections of basic human nature and aspiration as ideologies? Chalcot Crescent is a fictional enquiry into these two ideas. But how to do it? How to inform and question and not be boring? To use an octogenarian was a device which gave me a living witness to the way the personal and the political collided as the isms drifted by. Setting the novel 5 years ahead, in 2013, enabled me to drive the plot through using her adult grandchildren – products of the past – while they court disaster and plot revolution. Once the broad strokes are decided, ‘what happens next?’ tends to be answered in the act of writing. ‘Plots’ only work, I believe, if they are motivated by ideas, and it is the working out of the idea which spurs the ending. The reader is invited to agree or disagree but must consider the proposition, the ‘what-if?’ question that drives the experiment. Some of Chalcot’s predictions have come true. We have a coalition government, more intense personal surveillance than ever, a gross division between rich and poor. But my National Unity Government, in effect a committee of psycho-analysts and sociologists, turns out (in an ending which surprised even me) to be essentially benign. My octogenarian weakens and hands the plotters over to NUG. But NUG doesn’t hang them as expected; simply sighs and puts them into therapy. This novel, written in a doomy world, seemed to require a light touch. I aimed at a new genre: Orwell plus Laughs – and was gratified when the novel was described as such.