Where has political fiction gone?

Ideological fiction of the kind that Orwell wrote doesn't seem to fit our times. But two powerful new novels are closely tuned to politics of the apolitical

On the face of it, David Goodwillie's American Subversive hardly seems revolutionary. A terrorist attacks New York City. The next day Aidan Cole – former aspiring political journalist, now grubbing around as a celebrity gossip blogger – is sent an email with a photo of the bomber and the opportunity to get his life back on track. This is classic thriller territory: classic, in fact, to the point of over-familiarity. However, with consummate skill, Goodwillie takes this comfortable narrative arc and uses it to create a taut, intelligent, deftly written novel of politics and identity.


Taking as its starting point a left-wing group's move to violent conflict, American Subversive is bitingly, yet subtly, political. Its theme – of how deeply held convictions can be muted by apathy, or amplified by circumstance – is explored through the politicisation of Paige Roderick, and Cole's growing sense of needing and wanting more from life. Like Jim Crace's meditative All That Follows, this is a political novel where the absence of politics is as important as its power.

Such a position is quite at odds with what I consider to be political fiction. When reading, say, 1984, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists or Brave New World, it's the politics that provides the living pulse of the story. In each, social systems act upon the characters: they cannot escape their strictures. Each author uses these scenarios to vent their spleen, showing the glaring inequalities, subjugations and abuses of power that they provoke. In modern novels, however, politics seems more ephemeral, less pervasive – almost as if you can opt in or out.

While there are authors who take on political issues from a left-wing perspective – China Miéville, David Peace, James Kelman – political fiction is at its most dogmatic when approached from the right wing. Glenn Beck – a man so thrillingly cartoonish it's hard to believe he hasn't got a Scooby Doo-style tail hidden down his trousers – publishes The Overton Window next month, a novel he describes as "a story of America in a time much like today where the people are confused". It's modelled on Ayn Rand and is sure to be heralded as a masterpiece by his huge, devoted fanbase and decried by just about everyone else. But like Richard Littlejohn in this country – whose debut novel gave rise to possibly the best piece of literary radio in history – such writers rarely find an audience outside of a very specific demographic.

This, to me, suggests that contemporary political novels – the ones that sell, at least – are more concerned with political disengagement than they are with values or beliefs. The theme that courses through Goodwillie and Crace's books – as well as Joe Meno's excellent The Great Perhaps and Hari Kunzru's criminally underrated My Revolutions – is not one of right versus left or socialism versus capitalism, but about inaction versus action. They depict – with varying degrees of success – an apathy that is as pernicious as the unthinking governments and extremism that it can produce.

Goodwillie's novel does not have the lofty idealism of Tressell or Huxley, but its message of political engagement is explicit. On the eve of "one of the closest elections for a generation" – as every news outlet seems compelled to describe it – this simple, yet persuasive, plea for involvement seems as crucial as Orwell's scathing satire of totalitarianism.

The Guardian, 6 de maio de 2010