They

Kay Dick

The Sussex coast. Sunsets paint the windswept ocean; seagulls haunt the marshland; hunting rifles crack across hillsides. But this is England through-a-glass-darkly. They are coming closer. They begin with a dead dog, shadowy footsteps, confiscated books. Then, the National Gallery is purged; motorway checkpoints demarcate Areas, violent mobs stalk the countryside, destroying cultural artefacts – and those who resist. The surviving writers, artists and thinkers gather together, welcoming ‘dissidents’ like the unmarried and the childless. These polyamorous communities preserve their crafts, create, love, and remember. But as ‘subversives’ are captured in military sweeps, cured of identity, desensitised in retreats, they make it easier to forget.

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Description

For fans of I Who Have Never Known Men, a 'creepily prescient' (Margaret Atwood) lost dystopian 'masterpiece' (Emily St. John Mandel): in a nightmarish Britain, THEY are coming closer.

'Ceepy, tense and strange.' Ian Rankin 'Delicious and sexy and downright chilling … Read it!' Rumaan Alam 'The signature of an enchantress.' Edna O'Brien 'I'm pretty wild about this paranoid, terrifying 1977 masterpiece.' Lauren Groff 'Completely got under my skin.' Kiran Millwood Hargrave 'Lush, hypnotic, compulsive.' Eimear McBride 'A masterwork of English pastoral horror.' Claire-Louise Bennett 'A short shocker.' Andrew Hunter Murray

This is Britain: but not as we know it.
THEY begin with a dead dog, shadowy footsteps, confiscated books. Soon the National Gallery is purged; eerie towers survey the coast; mobs stalk the countryside destroying artworks – and those who resist.
THEY capture dissidents – writers, painters, musicians, even the unmarried and childless – in military sweeps, 'curing' these subversives of individual identity.
Survivors gather together as cultural refugees, preserving their crafts, creating, loving and remembering. But THEY make it easier to forget …

Lost for half a century, newly introduced by Carmen Maria Machado, Kay Dick's They (1977) is a rediscovered dystopian masterpiece of art under attack: a cry from the soul against censorship, a radical celebration of non-conformity – and a warning.

Additional information

Weight 0.115 kg
Dimensions 19.8 × 12.9 × 0.7 cm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

128

Language

English

Edition

Reprint

Dewey

823.914 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K