They (A Sequence of Unease)

They (A Sequence of Unease) - Kay Dick

Genre: Literary Fiction | Speculative Fiction

Release Date: 3rd February 2022 (Re-release)

Publisher: Faber & Faber

They are everywhere, but they are invisible.

They are calculating, cruel and absolute. They burn books and silence music. They do not tolerate people who choose to live alone or differently. They do not tolerate resistance, and they will show no mercy to anybody who even thinks about not doing things how they demand.

But our narrator thinks, and creates. As they move around the shadows of the counrtyside with other artists and thinkers who would be destroyed if caught by them. But still, they persevere, and silently hope for their creation to one day outweigh the destruction.

"Destruction doesn't count. One can always create again."

There is an unsettling and striking symmetry in the story of They and its author Kay Dick. When this novel was first published in the 1970's, it seemed the world just wasn't ready for it and it was pulled from print. Sadly Kay passed away in 2001 and now their work is being rediscovered once more. Now as we live through many of our own personal dystopias, Dicks writing resonates unwelcomely and forces us to ask questions about creation - is it worth creating art, writing novels, making music when nobody is looking? What happens when art fades into history, do we have a duty to remember it?

Our narrator is a non-gendered, non-named, undescribed human of our own imagination, and their storytelling was strange. The style jumped from flowing and descriptive to blocky and blunt - it didn't always make sense, but somehow the feelings always translated through the pages without the need for explanation.

Our nameless narrator and our villains are only identified by the word 'They' - blurring the lines even further in a way that only a captivating dystopian novel truly can. Our villians slowly strip away creativity and individuality, making it seem like there is a choice but really there isn't - and in a way that's more terrifying than outright control. It draws the reader in to question everything - especially about inaction, and whether inaction is really action on the side of the oppressor.

"Any attempt to give up was playing into their hands. Inaction was what they wanted."

If you're looking for an easy, clear, fully-resolved story, put this book back on the shelf and back away slowly. They isn't any of that - it is a short story that is enigmatically nightmarish and chaotic, both an electric celebration of expression, queerness and freedom and also an uneasy warning about how close we are to any number of dystopias if we let them take control.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I was gifted an advanced reviewers copy of this title in return for an honest review.

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