Fiction Reviews
The Descent
(2024) Paul E. Hardisty, Orenda, £9.99, pbk, 339pp, ISBN 978-1-916-78803-9
There are various different ways of signifying that someone is a 'bad person', ranging from the much-parodied sinister stroking of a large white cat to demanding seΧual ‘favours’ from their subordinates. When it comes to the Bezos/Musk mash-up caricature that is Derek Argent, a.k.a. ‘the Boss’, Hardisty goes for the latter option. Interposed between the chapters of what is basically a quest-narrative, the post-apocalyptic communiquéés from ‘Sparkplug’, Argent’s former P.A., detail her seΧual humiliation together with the machinations of a small group of billionaire capitalists who have caused the ‘descent’ of the title.
Setting aside, the issue of whether releasing a devastating virus in a world already ravaged by climate-change is over-egging the pudding to the point of scrambling it completely, that a woman who has decided to broadcast her memoirs of those machinations and her role in them would choose to report such degradation, down to the details of the underwear and dresses she wore, or didn’t, with such vigorous repetition, undermines whatever plausibility this particular route to dystopia might have.
The quest itself begins in Australia, where Kweku, his wife Juliette and son Leo, barely escape the slaughter of their extended family and the kidnapping of their niece Becky by the mysterious ‘Alpha and Omega’ group. Resolving to rescue Becky, the three leave on the boat that Kweku’s mother and father arrived on and head across the Indian Ocean, encountering along the way alternative examples of rebuilt societies that have managed to survive in these radically transformed global circumstances.
The first, on the coast of Madagascar, is matriarchal, with the men tasked with tilling the fields and defending the village while all decisions are made by the women, led by the ‘First Governess’. Although Juliette finds this arrangement entirely agreeable, Kweku balks when he discovers that his wife is expected to have seΧual relations, and children, with other men. His resistance leads to an attempt on his life, which convinces Juliette to flee with him and their son.
With Cape Town annihilated by a nuclear blast, their next landing is in Ghana, home to Kweku’s father’s family. Here the two sets of narratives – the quest-tale and the memoirs – intersect and we are presented with a society that is on its knees, following brutal medical experimentation by the billionaires’ consortium. Again, Juliette attracts the wrong kind of attention and together with Leo is taken by a local leader who wants to buy her from Kweku for breeding purposes. It is only when Kweku’s aunt intervenes that she is released and Kweku uncovers a little more of his father’s history.
Still on the trail of Becky’s kidnappers, the family then set sail across the Atlantic and after evading cannibals in South America, end up in Granada. In this community, the people seem relatively healthy and prosperous but only by virtue of serving the needs and interests of ‘the other side’, where a global slave market is hosted. By dint of a spot of derring-do, they learn that Becky has been taken to Bora Bora and with the help of the Marine Corps, now serving a reconstituted US government, the family sails through the Panama Canal to complete their circumnavigation.
The heart of the book, then, this is a more-or-less standard tale of pursuit, with effectively written episodes of action and betrayal. The problem lies in the book’s positioning as a prequel to The Forcing (Orenda Books, 2023), supposedly written by Kweku’s father, in which a youthful government takes power in the USA and in response to humanity’s dire situation, introduces a policy of institutionalised ageism. Using Sparkplug’s broadcasts as a device to chart the rapid ‘descent’ of civilisation just isn’t that effective and instead of acting as a warning about the path we’re all heading down, it comes across as prurient sensationalism. As such, it’s unlikely to encourage effective responses, much less change minds, despite the passion in the overall message.
Steven French
You can see Jonathan's take on The Descent here.
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