by Luke Kennard
Bought secondhand after I received an invitation to a Birmingham University book group meeting (online).
The author is a poet in his ?thirties, a faculty member at Birmingham, and this is his first novel. The idea of joining an online book discussion appealed, and the book itself sounded readable (it was).
Karl and Genevieve are participants in a programme designed to give offenders an alternative to a prison sentence, help them to ‘turn around’ their lives with the incentive of a home and a new financial start. The appeal is strong, to a generation of renters who can barely make ends meet and wonder when or whether they will ever be able to afford to have children.
Being myself of the generation who, to our own kids, appear to ‘have it all’, the dystopia that The Transition represents feels quite personal. We – my contemporaries and I – didn’t have to make the choices and financial compromises that members of our children’s generation seem to face.
But to the book: it is also the story of a relationship, of mental illness and how one couple responds to it (there is no implied judgment from the author), of corporate pressure and ambition. I could relate to these themes, and on the whole felt that they were explored in a compassionate, believable way.
Any story set in the future is bound to construct some technological developments that may or may not be believable. Self-stocking fridges, driverless cars, huge databanks that know your every movement – well, these things could be just around the corner. I felt that in two centuries, tech would have moved on a lot more than that. But given that the story is about human relationships – personal and organisational – a greater emphasis on tech would have got in the way. I can forgive the author for some rather simplistic expectations of how technology and ‘big data’ might be a part of our future lives.
Summary: a good read, a creditable first novel… I will keep an eye out for more of Luke Kennard’s work, including his poetry.
A rug and a book 