Claire North’s 84K is a profound exploration of dysaguria
A little while ago, I read Claire North’s 84K (Orbit; Little, Brown Book Group, London, 2018) (cover left). It is a stunning novel, vividly conceived and brilliantly executed, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. But my reasons for mentioning the novel here concern not so much its literary merits, but also how best to describe the world so chillingly realized within its pages.
Published after the Brexit referendum, but before the UK had left the EU, it is set in a post-Brexit England of the very-near future, where (a man called) Theo Miller works in the Criminal Audit Office. His job is to assess crimes and calculate the indemnity that the perpetrators must pay to ensure their debts to society are paid in full. Those unable to pay the indemnity are set to forced-labour in prison. The indemnity system is regularly described in the book as much more efficient than the alternatives. Moreover, everything is run by a company that’s owned by a company that’s owned by THE Company. In the ultimate example of business efficiency taking over from creaking public authorities, the government has licensed the Company to collect taxes: the Company pays the government £400b and keeps any profit above and beyond that.…