I’m no stranger to the work (or piece of work) that is/of Evangeline Jennings. I’ve rode shotgun through the maze of the macho, gunslinging and revenge of the Bride. I first came across Jennings when I reviewed an anthology called Cars&Girls back in 2013, back then I scoured the website to see if Pankhearst (the writing collective press Jennings is a part of) gave a shit, I was rewarded with the review being retweeted with the legend, ‘She get’s it’.
Women writers /reviewers/readers need ‘to get each other’, especially in these times of rightwing religious fervour. I face being in post-brexit Britain, Jennings and millions of others face being in a Trump led America.We can laugh all we like at Trump but if the racist Farage can win in the Motherland, then Trump has a chance in the Land of the Free and that is what this story is about.
We start with a familiar character from ‘No Xmas’ a miracle baby, a teenager and the polar vortex , the story ticks along like a Toyota hybrid, soundless but you see it’s going somewhere, but then it crashes, crashes like it hits speed bumps too quick, not too much damage done until it finally crashes into a wall.The speed bumps are chaptered as years and stop signs are the various degrees of the warnings from history. Let me explain.
I was in the pub earlier talking to my French colleague about this book (she’s seriously worried about Brexit)I said if we could ever imagine being a Woman in 1970’s Iran this book would explain the process. How does she feel about the government closing down the borders and essentially pissing on the right of movement of her own people.The scrolling news in the beer garden said a 19 year old had been arrested outside the tube in North London, she asked ‘why’ . Money,and the necessity to find meaning in this shitty life which basically revolves around what you have , not what you can give, I said.
Jennings is a great writer because she writes half a second forward from the truth, this dystopia is believable because its ugly, no-one is pretty, people do ugly things to survive and the truth of this books world and quite rightly turns the miracle baby into a monster.
The evil men do.
In prism 