The End Of The Day
Bad-time Charlie
released 6 april 403 pages | Hardback/ebook
Author Claire North Publisher Orbit
Righteous anger is a powerful motivating tool for an author. Faced with fear and injustice, all an artist can do is create. It’s how they make sense of the chaos. This, then, is Claire North’s response to a globe toppling towards hell.
Death, War, Pestilence and Famine stalk the modern world, and they send before them their harbingers – sometimes as a warning, sometimes as a courtesy. Charlie has accepted the job of Death’s harbinger, because he’s a people person and he likes travel... It’s a cute set-up, but this is not a comedy. Don’t expect gentle Pratchettesque satire; Claire North (aka Kate Griffin/Catherine Webb)’s style is more reminiscent of Lavie Tidhar’s Osama. This is our world, in all its absurd horror.
Charlie is kind, awkward, “normal”, worrying whether it’s too soon to text his new girlfriend. But he’ll witness rioting in Palestine and corruption in Nigeria. He’ll be harangued by property developers and take beatings from Russian gangsters. The book’s crammed with short scenes, set in cruel places plucked from the news. Pestilence whispers anti-vax messages in LA and War smokes cigarettes on the terrace of the White House. Charlie reminds us that ideas can die just as people can. This is a book about the end of civilisation.
It’s heart-warming in places too, as Charlie finds and often gives comfort, but it also delivers a roll-call of things to terrify: beheadings, jumpy cops shooting kids, white supremacists. Chapters made from snippets of overheard pub gossip or radio chatter are jarring because of their disjointed, incomplete nature. And, just like death itself, the story is unpredictable and offers few real conclusions. But it’s moving, a novel you’ll sob to while reading. Sadly, the next generation might see this as an essential text on how we lived and died in 2016. Dave Bradley
Webb also works as a theatrical lighting designer. Last year she was nominated for an “Offie” (indie theatre) award.
A novel you’ll sob to while reading’’