Anne Cunningham (Irish Independent, Independent on Sunday, Irish Times and Sunday Times) has reviewed Literature®.
"Imagine a world, sometime in the not-too-distant future, where fiction is banned. Imagine that all of the great novels and short stories in the world have been destroyed. Imagine a world where reading a work of fiction – only available from a secret underground “terrorist” network – is considered an act of sedition, punishable by execution. And if all of that seems too unlikely for words, just stop and think for a second; how many books do you imagine Donald Trump has read in his lifetime…? And who does he feel most threatened by, the likes of “Rocket Boy” or the intellectuals of America and the Western world?
Billy Stringer is a young sports reporter who has been born into this fiction-free future. And he’s doing OK in a kind of you-can’t-miss-what-you-never-had sort of way. Things change, though, when his girlfriend’s slightly wacky brother slips Billy a book. A novel. And tells him to be careful. But it seems Billy hasn’t been careful enough. He’s developed a “literary bent” and the authorities are onto him.
This slim novella is one of the cleverest stories I’ve read this year. It’s not strictly science fiction, not strictly dystopian and it’s not strictly Philip Marlowe either, although I think it could be described as a smashup of all of these influences. It’s whip-smart, well-paced, deeply satirical and dappled with just enough dark and light to keep the reader riveted.
Currently available on Amazon, Literature®deserves to be published mainstream and I do hope that happens. Soon."
The review appears in this week's edition of The Meath Chronicle.
Deep thanks.
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