The latest addition to my website is Patrick Langley‘s Arkady. This is a dystopian novel in a country that is much like Britain. Indeed, it was published five years ago and is looking more prescient today. Two young boys – Jackson and Frank – are on holiday in Spain with their parents. Their mother disappears and their father loses control. Move forward to their adolescence and they are living with an old man, Leonard in a dilapidated block of flats where people leave/are evicted. They spend much time exploring the decaying city but get caught up in protests. Jackson has found an old barge they call Arkady and, using it, they travel up North to the Citadel, a centre of protest against the corporatisation of the country. They get involved in the protests, particularly when the the landowners, a large corporation, tries to violently drive out the protesters. The brothers stick together through thick and thin but this is above all an indication and grim warning of how Britain (and, presumably, other countries) might become or indeed are becoming.