How Lonely Stands The City (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798850589509)

This work can be classified as post modernist absurdist literature
in the style of Joseph Heller and Mervyn Peake. It is not a fantasy
novel although there is a degree of whimsy within it. Neither is it a
dystopian work although it does include elements of imminent
calamity.

The plot centres on a middle-aged indolent, ineffectual protagonist,
who struggles to cope in an environment of incompetence, greed,
irrationality and apathy. He bumbles along from one calamity to
another in an irrational and demanding environment. There is a
subplot with another character, a seagull-riding pixie, who has the
same character attributes and is surrounded by disorganised and
incompetent sycophants who mismanage their affairs in an equally
chaotic fashion.

All the action takes place within 'The City', a thinly disguised
sobriquet for Blackpool and its environs. The population are
engaged in a perpetual internecine struggles with rival groups, in
a milieu of conformity, tradition and narrow-minded ineptitude,
overseen by a meddlesome, ineffectual government department.
Their efforts of all the characters are frantic and comically
endearing but underlying the action is the ubiquitous theme of
destruction of the environment and the doom that must inevitably
follow.

In the introduction, the author promises a 'straightforward
narrative', starting at the beginning and working to a conclusion,
but immediately breaks that promise and shuffles, seemingly
randomly, from one period to another, creating a history of The
City in a anarchic manner. The disordered timescale is indicative
of the randomness of the City's development and indeed the
world's progress, for the City can be seen as code for the earth. At
the dénouement, the two protagonists eventually meet when their
respective worlds are on the brink of destruction. The novel ends
in an aura of confused despondency but with the promise of
eventual redemption.