2020: A Novel

by Kenneth Steven

In the tradition of 1984 and It Can't Happen Here, 2020 is a timely dystopian novel about a country divided, a terrorist attack, and an populist leader who promises he alone is the solution. In 2020, Britain is at a breaking point. Years of economic turmoil, bitter debates over immigration, anger at the political elites, and fears about the future have created a maelstrom, a dis-United Kingdom, with citizens tempted to find easy answers in demagoguery and isolationism. The country is a bomb waiting to explode. Then it does. A major terrorist attack targets a sleeper train traveling between Edinburgh and London, leaving a staggering number of dead and wounded. Investigators soon identify the culprits as a radicalized group of young British Muslims. Horrific images from the attack and speculation by the media fan worries about further terrorist acts and the danger of an enemy within. In the aftermath, two far right organizations join to create a new radical group called White Rose, promising to stand up for English values. An unproven leader vows thathe can fix the nation. As the nightmare unfolds, a myriad of voices-from across the social and political spectrum-offer wildly differing perspectives on the chaotic events . . . and unexpectedly reveal modern Britain’s soul with 20/20 acuity. Thoughtful, compassionate, and provocative, Kenneth Steven’s 2020 is a parable for our times.

Genres: Fiction, Dystopia, Contemporary, Adult, Terrorism

Kindle Edition

First published May 25, 2017

About the author

Kenneth Steven is a translator, writer, and poet. His longest translation, The Half Brother, was long-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and short-listed for the international IMPAC Award. He often completes work for NORLA (Norwegian Literature Abroad).

He lives in Aberfeldy, Perthshire, Scotland.

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked ‘2020’ up from the library’s table of new acquisitions, because I can't resist a near future novel. This one looked to be a response to Brexit, although a note at the end reveals that it was written in 2015. The author foresaw that the tensions within English society would come to a head somehow, although he gave it a few more years. This short novel (novella really) concerns flaring racial tensions within a fictional urban area of Northern England. It is told through multiple first person accounts, which are both effective and unsettling. Steven successfully foresees that there would be further terrorist attacks which would increase islamophobia, however his analysis of the situation is curiously partial. The EU is not mentioned once and the impact of the media (conventional and social) in stoking racism is hardly touched upon. Nonetheless, there is an unpleasant plausibility about the depiction of the ‘White Rose’, a violent white supremacist group spawned by the EDL and BNP. It seemed particularly realistic that when one of their leaders won a by-election as an independent, he had no idea what to do as an MP. Similarly, the Leave campaigns yelled loudly prior to the referendum, but now have no idea how Brexit is actually going to work and are flailing hopelessly. All they have is hateful rhetoric, no actual solutions to social problems. This passage certainly seemed familiar:

But I think I went home that night imagining the place would be back to normal the following morning. That’s generally the way of it, isn’t it? You can have a right old political earthquake and the next day the bins are still collected and old Mr Jones still walks his poodle to the newsagent to pick up his copy of the paper. I just thought it had been an exciting night and it went to show you could never predict the outcome of elections. I drew my curtains and paid homage to the patron saint of political upsets. I had no earthly idea what was about to happen. But I would still contend that no-one did: not a soul. I’d put money on that.

Although ‘2020’ isn’t technically a meditation on Brexit, it’s close enough to be tagged as such. In light of the astoundingly inept government we’ve had for the past 18 months, I think it gives politicians way too much credit. However there are some thought-provoking perspectives on racism and social breakdown. I was particularly struck by several accounts of people witnessing violent attacks and just running away, without calling the police let alone helping the victim. I’d like to think that England isn’t in quite such a terribly divided state, but rising numbers of hate crimes and constant racism and islamophobia from the Murdoch papers suggest it really is.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, so realistic and disturbing. A publisher's note at the end of the book states that the story was simply a prescient idea, long before Brexit or Trump. If so, the author is definitely in tune with the feeling of discontent and simmering rage across several Western countries. It really felt like a news report instead of a novel.

[Zulfiya · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a painful book to read. I am surprised the book is not getting more reviews and more readers. It is a poignant story of what can be/could be/might be when both liberal and conservative politics fail, and as a result extremism is gaining its power.

Because of the name, most people attribute it to the USA situation, but in fact the events take place in Northern Britain where the racial and cultural tensions run high.
The book consists of newscasts, recollections, personal narratives that tells the story of the terrorist attack with the multiple casualties and the subsequent rise of the white supremacy movement and, as a result, sectarian and racial violence on both sides.

This is a chilling account that might happen and is happening already in many countries, including the USA because multiculturalism ( and I am quoting the book) " was made to fail".

I am fully with the author here - in theory multiculturalism is an excellent idea; in practice, though, it does take a lot of work that we all need to do. The novel is a scathing criticism of radicalism on both sides, corrupt government and politicians who use great ideas and slogans to come to power and then fail us miserably.

[Lori L (She Treads Softly) · Rating 4 out of 5]

2020 by Kenneth Steven is a highly recommended dystopian novel set in Great Britain about a country divided, a terrorist attack, and an populist leader.

2020 is a short, but timely novel. The narrative follows a major terrorist attack on a train traveling between Edinburgh and London. The story is told through wildly different sources, interviews, witnesses, and news stories from a wide cross-section of society. The reader must then piece together the total picture of what happened and the aftermath through these first person accounts. The result is a disturbing picture of a terrorist account and the extreme response to it.

Apparently 2020 was written in 2015, but reads as if it were written today. The first person accounts are all insights into vastly different points-of-view and reactions to a horrible attack. Steven clearly captures the societal division in the UK, but this same division can be seen in other countries as well. Steven covers all sides of the public opinion, so this is a multi-sided focus. After reading 2020, I needed some thinking time - and I really believe that is the whole point of the novel. Yes, it is a novel, but even more it really is a modern day parable. The US version will be released in August.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of the publisher/author.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2018/0...

[Patrick DiJusto · Rating 4 out of 5]

The premise of a lot of science/speculative fiction is "This is the way the world is NOW, what happens if we extrapolate those trends several (years | decades | centuries) into the future and see what the world will be like THEN." Of course, real life being stranger than fiction, a lot of extrapolated scenarios don't actually come true.

So when Kenneth Steven wrote a book (really a novella) in 2015 about a passionate extemporaenous speaker with no political experience who finds himself running for public office because he manages to elucidate the bottled up rage of working class white people against brown-skinned immigrants, he probably figured he was writing a cautionary tale about what _might_ happen, not what _will_ happen.

But every so often, a speculative fiction writer hits the jackpot -- whether he wants to or not.

[Tina Panik · Rating 4 out of 5]

An examination of broken people acting on behalf of their broken countries that will leave you hauntingly, distinctly, uncomfortable. Steven wrote this is 2015, before our present started unraveling. Fans of The Reluctant Fundamentalist will enjoy this book.

[Cris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Told in a documentary-style with multiple first person point of views.

Each section was short. While I didn't have any trouble piecing together the events, I found the pacing to be choppy and off-putting. Characterization is basically non-existent since the narrators are not identified.

[James Frederick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the more unique books I have read. It is set in the (now) near past, but really is meant to be a cautionary tale about what could be the near future. It is set in the UK, but if not for the titles of the officials and some of the city names, it really could be anywhere in the world.

There are probably two dozen or more narrators. Most of the time, they are not identified by name and you need to guess how/where they fit in to the larger story.

As for story, there are really only 3 or 4 major events that take place. The rest of the book is reaction to those events. You could probably argue there is only one major event and then reaction and I could be persuaded.

Essentially, a terrorist attack takes place on a crowded passenger train and the remainder of the book it about how the people in the UK deal with that, including politicians and their families, the police, the different ethnic groups in the surrounding areas, etc.

You here the reaction and the ensuing events through the voices of the various narrators as they explain the train wreck that follows the train wreck. It reflects the simmering unrest and incivility and intolerance of the various ethnic groups that are in close proximity and the initial attack is the catalyst that sets the tensions on fire, figuratively and literally.

There are not really any characters dealt with directly, as with a normal book. Certain leaders of parties or groups are mentioned, but it is not like they could really be called characters, as such. So the book is largely a disjointed series of snippets from various voices in the community about what is going on and how they feel about it.

It is a different approach and it is jarring in some ways. For many people, this will just be too different and they will knock it for not being like a "normal novel." For me, it took a while to get used to the format and it was disjointed (I believe, intentionally). But I liked the creativity of it. I could also see enough of the current world in the book that it was a bit chilling, in a good dystopian way.

There really is no ending. There is a call for something better, but we never really find out whether that happened or not. I guess we will just need to wait and see.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wavered between 4 and 5 stars for this book. It was very short, which was appropriate for the story and the way it was written (in the form of interviews and news reports). This book tells the story of what would happen if, after a terrorist attack committed by young radicalized muslims in the UK one town in Northern England becomes the site of a battleground between the white working-class residents and the Asian community (I'm assuming from the details that "Asian" means mostly refugees from the middle east and Pakistani). In their frustration in the wake of the terror attack, the white voters (many of whom are members of White Rose, an occasionally violent populist group) show up and show out for an MP candidate with no experience who is running on a xenophobic platform not to win, but to get people to really think about what they want from their politicians. Well, he wins and both communities become embroiled in violence and distrust. Sound familiar?

Now the publisher says that no one in this book is based on anyone because the book was written in 2015. I don't know, both the US election campaign and the Brexit campaign were discussion topics in 2015, so it's not hard to really predict the worst case scenario based on the real situations (although this book takes things to a level beyond what is actually happening in both the US and UK). That's why I didn't go for a 5 star on this; I didn't think it was as amazingly prescient as it claimed to be. If it had been written pre- 9-11 and pre-Trump candidacy I could be like "Woah! He totally called it!". That being said, it was a powerful book and well worth the short time it took to read.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought reading a speculative fiction of what 2020 was expected to be like would be a fantastic start to this new and exciting year. Sadly it turns out this book was written between 2015-17 which makes it a lot less speculative and much more just looking out of the window.
The book is a series of short interviews, news reports and statements from various people telling the aftermath of a terrorist attack and the rise of a far right group called White Rose. For the majority of the book we don't really know what the main events are (except the initial attack) and as we read the statements and reports we slowly learn more and more. This was a great way to get the story across and made it feel much more real and urgent.
Attack aside the story is very much exactly where we find ourselves in the UK with divided communities along various different lines and unrest bubbling just below the surface.
One thing that really lets this book down is that a lot of the voices we here from don't ring true. The most noticeable one is from a teenager who uses langues that even a University Professor might think too flowery. One of the statements is from a back bench politician and talks about how most politicians don't understand the Norther, which I think is very true in book as in life, but this does point out just how off the voices of the Northerners in the book sound. It's a shame because it is the only thing that lets the book down but it lets in down is such a huge way as to ruin the entire experience.

[Devasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should preface this by saying that this is not my favorite genre, and I didn't like the form (micro-chapters in many different perspectives). Also, having seen my country go through the events that culminated in the January 6th attack on the Capitol, I might be a little more critical since I now know a bit more about how events like the ones detailed in the novel actually look like in real life.

Here are my main qualms with this novel:
1) At times, the author seemed to attempt neutrality. When one side is made of up hundreds upon thousands of violent white supremacists and the other side is a couple of Islamist radicals, I think it's pretty clear that we should be siding with the Pakistani community that gets violently targeted by the white supremacists . I have no sympathy for insecure white supremacists, thank you very much.

2) The novel never addresses the history of the British in Pakistan, Partition, or colonization generally conceived. Seems pretty relevant to me, but I guess the author didn't consider it?

3) One of the only women in the book was also the white supremacist lady who fixes everything at the end. White women should not be getting that kind of credit. Also, of course everyone only cares or listens when there's a tearful white woman saying "Why can't we all just get along?" I find this super problematic. Hey, I'm glad she saw that racial violence is actually a bad thing, but "I think we all made mistakes" is really not it.

Long story short, this book was trying to be 1984 but really did not succeed.

[Moriah · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting presentation for a novel: multiple voices, with no introduction to them besides what they say of themselves. Some of the voices sounded similar, but that might be because most of them were written in a speaking voice. I wish there was more context: it seems like these people are testifying, but to whom? for what purpose?
Steven caught multiple perspectives, and the jumping to and fro from one voice to another was effective for the story-telling.
Apparently the book was written in 2015 and only published in 2018... that's a good read on where culture has been heading the last several years.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written and important book that everyone should read. A wide variety of characters bear witness to the all-too plausible events as they unfold before the reader. The author uses the same 'standard' English for all thus avoiding the pitfalls of prejudice and stereotyping that might have arisen over differences in grammar, dialect and choice of vocabulary. This gives every character, regardless of class, colour or religious and political persuasion, the same platform to speak from. It also made the narrative flow very well.
Highly recommended.

[JDK1962 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Novella-length tale of a terrorist bombing and the subsequent backlash against the Islamic community by nationalist/anti-immigrant forces. Told almost exclusively through news accounts and first-person testimony at hearings or investigations into the events...consequently, there's not a lot of scene-setting or storytelling, simply fragments that the reader puts together.

I shouldn't read books like this, I think: all they make me do is think about politics here in the U.S., which is a profoundly depressing subject.

[Sean Randall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Morbid and scarily divisive, I can't honestly say that there's anything in here I can't see happening. It's so hard to reconcile the friendly, cheerful people with whom I work and those I see on the street every day with the mob mentality shown here, and yet I know that we are only a very short step away from that every single day of our lives. This was penned truly and with a stark, strong message.

[Jason Saunders · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was written in 2015, prior to brexit and prior to Trump being elected as the president of the United States. It is set in England but the events, some characters and the mood of the population described in this short novel parallels what's actually happening curently in America in the year 2020.

[Tech Ninja · Rating 1 out of 5]

1/5 Did not finish, the writing in this book is so amateurish and skips around, there's a good premise for plot which I liked but horrible writing and implementation, this book I do not recommend to anyone

[Vicki Horsburgh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well thought out and imagined, could almost be non-fiction. Everyone gets a view point (surely no one can argue that a particular group is not represented here). A quick afternoon read with a pot of tea.

[Von · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sort of eerie how close it is to todays way of thinking. The individual stories told of the same events give a sense of being there. I would say an exaggerated version of what is going on now in day, but sadly enough I might not be. I thoroughly enjoyed every page.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually 3.5

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very prescient of what could happen anywhere.

[Ned Abbott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slight and devastating.

[Nikki Hendricks · Rating 2 out of 5]

I honestly found this book confusing to follow and think just about anybody that follows the news could have written a similar book.

[Erin Dowling · Rating 1 out of 5]

Would it be too much to ask that the author would tell you which of the many confusing narrators is speaking? I don't know. Might have made this better.

[Andy Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh, not bad. Not exactly that good, either.

[Libby Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t have enough superlatives for this book.

[kendra eliza · Rating 3 out of 5]

the choppy writing and unidentified narrators just did not hold my attention

[Jonas Hein · Rating 5 out of 5]

2020 is great book that stands as a warning to what might happen if we let our world continue to fall apart.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

So clever not the usual book I would read but it was a book that really got me thinking!

[Redd Oscar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Something kind of like disappointing.