by Will Self
First published 2006
Dave Rudman drives a black cab through London's streets, bitter about his divorce and desperate to connect with his estranged son. He pours his rage and twisted wisdom into a rambling manuscript, burying it in Hampstead Heath before disappearing from his boy's life. Centuries pass. Rising seas have drowned London, transforming England into scattered islands. Dave's buried book surfaces among the survivors, who mistake his angry advice for divine revelation. His personal grievances become religious law. His rants about women and driving become sacred doctrine. When one believer begins to question the teachings of Dave, he threatens the entire faith built on a cabbie's delusions. The novel cuts between Dave's miserable present and the waterlogged future his words have shaped. Self explores how personal pain can mutate into collective madness across generations.
Genres: dystopia, literary-fiction, 21st-century, alternate-history
Vibes: dark, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: dystopian-society, unreliable-narrator
Setting: London, England, Hampstead Heath
Period: Centuries, Present Day
496 pages · Hardcover · Penguin Viking
Content warnings: violence