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Art works for a security company, spending his days trawling through the
Internet trying to find copyright infringements, snuffing out the spread of
small artists’ creative work. In his spare time he writes a nature blog, posts
about imagined walks and encounters with nature, constructed via the internet
instead of genuine experience. His girlfriend, Charlotte, tired of his apathy,
leaves, smashing his laptop and hacking into his Twitter account to post fake
news designed to discredit and embarrass. It is this which leaves him
desperately in need of someone to take to his mother’s at Christmas. A
fortuitous meeting at a bus stop provides him what he needs and he soon finds
himself traveling to Cornwall with Lux who, he pays to pose as Charlotte.
We soon come to realise that his deception
is not the only one. His mother Sophia and her sister Iris can’t agree on what
happened during his childhood, who looked after him and when. The reader is
never quite sure which account to believe but you’ll likely find yourself
naturally leaning toward one. Iris is an activist and thinks of herself as a
citizen of the world. Sophia can’t understand her lifestyle and dislikes
immigrants, yet seems to trust Lux, originally from Croatia, more than her own
family. Lux is refreshingly honest, intelligent, good with people, and subverts
racial prejudices. She helps Art to see the ridiculousness of the government’s
actions, sending out boats to intercept rescue ships sent to help migrants in
trouble in the sea. The last section of the novel highlights the cruel way
bureaucracy treats people, preferring to eject those who need help, blind to
their humanity.
The novel is full of contradictions. Sophia is rigid and resistant to
emotion yet has no trouble imagining a head around her home, ghostly yet
containing no horror to her. She is a modern day Scrooge, resenting the
intrusion of her family and refusing to eat any of the Christmas dinner Iris
prepares for them.
The novel has an otherworldly feel to it yet remains unashamedly
political. Ali directs her characters to highlight the folly of isolationism
and reminds us that people are not mere statistics. She plays not only
on the political challenges of the day, and indeed those of the past, but also
the way we replace real life interactions with screen time and armchair
activism. As always, she holds up a mirror to the absurdities of the day and
encourages a more compassionate worldview.
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