I first wrote Rats in the Capital in 2014-2015. That was the first draft, anyway. More drafts followed, but the story was notable because it was a very British novel set in the present day.
There wasn’t any problem with that (or, at least, not so I thought). But then, in 2016, Brexit happened. And that, in case you don’t know, was the UK political schism that has since driven large portions of the country stark and raving mad.
To be fair, it surprised everyone, including the politicians who made such a big play for it. As for lanky old me, I had plenty of other problems going on at the time. However, as much as I wanted to ignore such a seismic cultural event happening to my nation in real time, that proved largely impossible.
Still, I carried on writing Rats in a rather belligerent fashion. Knowing Brexit was changing everything, but refusing to mention it at all in a final draft completed around 2020. Like many authors around the time, I just wanted my novel done and for Brexit to disappear.
But many more things came to happen then, including the pandemic and Partygate. Then, Liz Truss blew up the UK economy, and with a whole universe of demagogues popping up left, right, and centre, the sheer dystopian reality of it all has felt overwhelming.
Writing this bloody novel, then, has felt hard. It’s been difficult to know what to say exactly. Annoyingly, I thought I had something cogent to say at various points only for it to disappear again. With so much chaos swirling around me all the while, finding a coherent theme has felt beyond me.
I realise that this is one of the pitfalls of writing about the present day. You’ve got to be quite strategic about what you’re planning. Then, quick in the writing and execution. And, well, on this occasion, I’ve been neither.
So, what is happening with it now?
Well, there’s this short version. Think of it as a self-contained prelude.
I don’t know about the wider story, but if I do decide to rewrite it, it will be set in an alternate reality that isolates what I want to say about Britain. And being sci-fi/fantasy, it may do that in an alternate setting and time.
Maybe Boris Johnson has been assassinated for not being ‘hard’ Brexit enough. Liz Truss never got voted out of office, and a strange alchemy is happening to the denizens of London.
To be honest, that describes a dystopia close to the one we’ve just stumbled out of. And you never know, could be heading back to very soon. I hope not, but given how political discourse runs these days, it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise.
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