Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Having loved Dark Eden, I was prepared to try this book on a completely different topic because I enjoyed Chris’ writing so much. However, this book sounds like it focuses on a post-Brexit world and its consequences when it really is about contemporary middle-class people and their endless discussion.

The book consists of Zoe who discovers the diary of Harry a middle-class architect and essentially authors his story. The only delight in this is we never know how much is really what Harry wrote in his diary and how much of it is Zoe imagining or deciding what took place. Through Zoe’s retelling or imagining we get a very lengthy discussion of Brexit and it’s very dull, very boring. Perhaps because if you’re living through it, it’s really not something you want to read again and again and again.

The book brings the element of class and the divide of voters in England, through the introduction of a romantic partner for Harry, in the form of a woman named Michelle. Michelle voted to leave, Harry voted to remain and so whilst they very much enjoy each other's bodies, they butt heads over their voting choices. I’ll admit, I expected the portrait of Michelle to be a lot worse, but knowing Chris’ background I now realise he is not the sort of author to ridicule and antagonise the working class.

The setting of the book in the 23rd century provided a nice separation for Zoe’s reflections, she is someone so far removed from that time that the whole thing seems odd to her. We get very little time with the people of the 23rd century, and truthfully I’m glad, the world sounded bleak and boring and yet still full of the poor/rich divide.

This book feels very current, I will give it that. The conversations and commentary about class are things we’ve all heard in discussions about Brexit and I really think that’s why this book is boring because I’ve lived through, I’m living through it and so the debates back and forth (especially by middle-class people) are trite.

DNF
It pains me to say, because I love everything else Chris Beckett has written, but this was not engaging. Struggled to 45% but realised I didn’t care about the characters or what was happening. In true Beckett style the writing it wonderful, but the characters and setting was too real life—mundane for me.
Thank you for the opportunity to read this book.

Disclaimer: I was given an Advanced Reader Copy of Two Tribes via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. See below:

This book was, in brief: disappointing. The concept, at first glance, seemed interesting; a retroactive look at Brexit from a post apocalyptic wasteland? Yes, please! The reality was far less interesting.

Above all the novel appeared a thinly veiled, self-indulgent excuse to discuss at length the two sides of the Brexit debate. It was patronising in its efforts to capture the working class, did very little to develop the narrator’s character, wasted its opportunity to discuss the dystopian society by creating disparate imagery and the author appears to have frequently forgotten the means by which they were telling the story (a historian mixing diary entries with some clearly fictionalised elements and others not very clear elements).

I picked up this book some time ago and put it down. I’ll be honest in saying I wish I hadn’t picked it back up again. It was frustrating to see an author toy with these fascinating concepts only to muddle them into a book which never managed to flesh them out. It was frustrating to see the author flit between periods of weighty, literary descriptors to clunky exposition. And it was frustrating to read passages which seemed self-conscious only to then see a rather arrogant, condescending section on a niche topic further down (I appreciate a well-researched book, but don’t want an explainer on constitutions, thanks.).

The ending was not only ambiguous, but rather pointless. Whether the narrator or the subject of the narrator was successful in their respective relationships was honestly not that tantalising a topic as the author seems to have imagined it.

All in all, a disappointment for sure. Hopefully this author’s Brexit fever will abate so they can return to business as usual and better writing as a result.

Set partially in the 23rd century, but mostly in 2016, Two Tribes follows the story of Zoe, a historian looking back on Brexit through the writings of two diaries which have survived from the era. One belongs to Harry, an upper middle class architect living in London, while the other has been written by Michelle, a working class woman from a less prosperous UK town. When Harry and Michelle cross paths in the aftermath of the EU referendum, each of their strongly held world views are called into question.

If you're thinking of picking up this book because you enjoy a good sci-fi/ dystopia, this is not the novel for you. The 23rd century setting works excellently as a means of creating distance between the researcher Zoe and her subject, Brexit, allowing Beckett to add a somewhat emotionally disconnected perspective on the referendum debate. The sections of the book set in Beckett's future Britain are intriguing but never fully elaborated on. We're offered only a glimpse, adding nothing more to the story than a longer-term context to today's social discourse.

The social commentary in this book is incredibly well observed, for the most part. The repetition of slogans and key phrases being sounded into insular echo chambers on both sides of the Brexit debate is highlighted effectively. Discourse on classism in the UK and the unequal distribution of power and wealth is astute.

Harry, a wealthy and inherently middle class 'remainer', meets Michelle, a working class 'leaver' and falls almost immediately in love and reassesses everything he's ever believed about Brexit and society at large. This creates a great opportunity for Beckett to discuss many of the apparent 'truisms' bandied about on both sides, and offers some interesting observations. It also, however, makes Harry almost insufferable as a character. Now conflicted, he continually obtusely challenges everyone and anyone on their views, which does begin to grate. His conversations with Michelle are so condescending and class-obsessed that I was forever willing her to give him whatfor. Their chemistry was entirely lost on me, except for what they offered in terms of narrative progression.

This novel had me thinking constantly, and offered some valuable insights into the Brexit debacle. As a story, it had a couple of flaws - some narrative streams strangely trickled into nothing, the ending was fairly abrupt and the dialogue between characters was ocassionally unnatural. But as a reading experience, this book had me hooked.

An intriguing and fascinating novel set in the future even if it talks about what's going on now.
I liked the style of writing and appreciated how the author explains the current Brexit situation and shows how not being able to talk and listen can affect the future.
It's the first book I read by this author and won't surely be the last.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

When a 23rd century historian discovers journals from two people writing about each other and the same events in 2016, she’s inspired to try to tell their story, pieced together from writings and an abundance of social media records. Harry is an architect and ‘remainer’, Michelle is a hairdresser and pro-Brexit. Can two people from such different ‘tribes’ ever get along? And what of the alienness of life before the Warring Factions conflict, global warming, and all the other things that have changed life in our future?

To be honest, I didn’t really like this book. And yet, I didn’t hate it enough to stop reading. It was, despite the subject matter, easy to read and well enough written, with the exception of some very false-sounding, clunky dialogue near the beginning (not quite “Hey sis, you know our deceased parents who…” kind of level, but shades of it).

The sci-fi framing tale felt like a bit of a bait-and-switch for what turned out to be a particularly long diatribe about Brexit. Sorry, but yawn. Harry is dangerously close to a ‘Gary Stu’, having all of these revelations about how must examine his default view, that there are two sides, it’s not pro-this and anti-that, middle versus working class, education versus prejudice, blah blah, aren’t I so reasonable and the only person actually thinking! This is balanced by making him somewhat of a pathetic character, and the main story is some tortured love affair that is probably meant to be very Romeo and Juliet, or at least West Side Story.

Meanwhile we get regular little glimpses into the future ‘now’ of the narrator, and discover that as well as obsessing over these two opposite characters, she’s decided to add a layer of fiction with groups of leavers and remainers who may or may not develop into those ‘Warring Factions’ that broke the country. Anything interesting in how things pan out, however, is covered in a few lines of exposition at best.

The last line almost makes it all have a point, albeit rather suddenly, but to be honest it just wasn’t that interesting getting there. I’m surprised it wasn’t more of a slog to read, although it was irritating rather a lot of the time. I’m sure the author was aiming for being impartial, and he does have a few good observations, and yet there are still not quite subtle prejudices in the viewpoints, some of which I’m not entirely sure weren’t slightly offensive to at least one group, if not all.

So… can’t recommend. There are interesting moments of how a future society might view our obsession with the likes of social media, or our unthinking privileges, but overall it’s a thinly dressed up attempt at expounding some ‘clever’ viewpoints, shoved into the mouths of some fairly unlikeable characters who in the end I just really wished would shut up.

Reading for me is all about escapism. Particularly at the moment with my industry in free-fall after Covid-19, I’m using reading as a heavy distraction from the utter craziness of politics and the insane world going on around me at the moment. A book based on Brexit therefore, was in hindsight, not particularly the best choice of ARC to request! However, I was drawn in by the apocalyptic angle, the idea of events we are in the middle of right now shaping the future was interesting. I also liked the idea of future historians looking back on our choices and trying to work out what we were thinking and where key decisions had been made in our timeline to affect theirs.

Two Tribes for me fails on all counts. The apocalyptic angle that I had been most interested in was completely side-lined. We understand the Chinese are in charge, there’s been some flooding and a new government with ‘nine principles’ and there’s talk of soldiers that can see all of your personal details at a glance. That is about the full extent of the world-building given to the reader and we know even less about the two historians – just their names and their jobs with a bit of romance thrown in extremely last minute. It’s so shallow and so undefined and so… disappointing. Give me a world to be engrossed in – if you’re making the point that Brexit started something so massive that it’s still being looked at when the world is half destroyed in 250 years time then show me that world!

Instead of focussing on the future element of the book, the author instead mainly focuses on Brexit and flashbacks of our main characters in the past through ‘diary entries’. There’s Harry who is a Remainer and massively unlikeable - he is ashamed of his girlfriend because she dares to have different viewpoints as him, is upper-class and self centred and makes some truly awful statements that made me want to throw my Kindle out of the window (and I’m on his political side!). There’s Michelle, a Leaver who is an uneducated hairdresser who unfortunately crosses paths with Harry. She is also not very fleshed out; I wanted to actually know more about why she felt the way she did, but the author just ended up speaking in clichés for most of her inner reasoning. We then also get a few other side-characters who are around for a chapter or two including Charlie, a clueless lad who gets drawn into an EDL like club.

The book is supposed to have been scraped together by the future historians from diary entries and glimpses of their social media accounts which are still inexplicably available to view. This is unrealistic on so many counts – how many people do you know at the moment that write in a diary? How many of those people who write diaries write them in such a detailed way that you could recreate the scene down to the minute detail? The author has tried to be clever here by saying the historian made up some details and padded the accounts using artistic license. This is someone living 250 years in the future - surely they would be unable to seamlessly patch stories together without in-depth knowledge of the time. I think of all the slang I don’t know that the generation before me use on a daily basis and vice versa – there’s no way someone from the future could fill in those gaps without it being instantly noticeable by someone living in the time. This could have been a really nice little touch – words and phrases used that perhaps didn’t make sense and created more of an insight into the future world but was a missed opportunity.

This book didn’t teach me anything I didn’t know about Brexit, this book didn’t challenge my way of thinking, this book didn’t paint me an interesting picture of a possible future now that the decision has been made and this book didn’t make me feel anything but anger for its poorly drawn, cliched and unlikeable characters. This book, in short, was not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley & Atlantic Books – Corvus for the chance to read the ARC of Two Tribes in exchange for a (very) honest review.

Two Tribes (Frankie Goes to Hollywood reference?) is set 250 years into the future since the 2016 Brexit referendum. There has been a civil war (as the two factions of Leave and Remain crystallised into Liberal and Patriot armies), a takeover by China which sees them in charge and a natural catastrophe linked to climate change. All this, however, is by-the-by in Chris Beckett's novel, as he examines the tired debates and view points of both sides of the referendum.

In diaries left behind by characters on both sides of the fence, historians examine what happened and one uses the material as source for a novel. The author backs up his own stance by saying "This is a novel, isn't it? It has to be about characters and conversations.." Trouble is all the conversations are about Brexit!
I found it interesting that it did look at both sides of the fence and that it looked at group dynamics and the sociology behind self-affirmation, disillusionment and loneliness that leads to people with the same point of view blocking debate and those who disagree. It can also be seen with people in the far-right, far-left stances taking shape across the world at the moment and the anti-racism / anti-anti-racism responses.

In this way, I guess the book is a warning about not finding common ground, engaging in debate or ignoring the issues that may prompt a certain viewpoint. Michelle and Harry are the two characters with opposite views and different backgrounds who try to form a relationship despite prejudices and pre-judged ideas from themselves and both sides of their families. Sadly the conclusion gives no hope.

In the 23rd century, with a civil war raging in Britain, Zoe a historian writes a novel about the aftermath of the 2016 European referendum based on the diaries of Harry (a middle class remainer) and his relationship with Michelle (a working class leaver). Through Harry and Michelle the story raises the issues caused by the referendum and the stances taken by each side. With the views of the two sides deeply entrenched, the rise of the far right and populist governments, and a general mistrust of politicians the referendum appears to be the beginning of a split in society. With climate change on the horizon and the Covid pandemic it is not such a great leap to the Civil War in this novel where ‘Patriots’ and ‘Liberals’ fight to take control of the country.

An intriguing political novel which puts the views from both sides of the Brexit debate and although it probably won’t change your opinion it may help you understand those opposing views.

I received an advanced copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, this book is COMPLETELY different to any of Chris Beckett's previous novels (that I've read, anyway). If you're expecting a weird, twisted Sci-fi novel like I was, you may want to think again...

I found Two Tribes to be an interesting concept (23rd century archivists piecing together the lives of two 'ordinary' people post-Brexit), but completely boring at the same time! I'm totally on board with what Beckett was trying to get across here (and some of his digs at 2016 society were spot on) but the endless, repetitive, conversations between insufferable white middle class liberals about Brexit just didn't make for a thrilling read for me.

Perhaps in years to come Two Tribes will stand up as an important view on this era, but I was a lot more interested in Beckett's 23rd century post-war, climate-destroyed, world. Unfortunately of this we only get teeny snippets after pages of endless dinner party Brexit rants. I think if the ratio between the centuries was altered, this could have been such a thought-provoking read.

There's an exchange in this book which neatly summarised my feelings about it. It's when one of the main characters, Michelle, is taking the other (Harry) to task:

"She put on her super-posh voice. 'Oh, but you and I are so different, Michelle!' I mean, for fuck's sake, Harry, if that really bothers you, then we can end this now. And if it doesn't bother you, why do you have to keep on and on and on about it all the fucking time?"

He really does. One of the things I struggled with in Two Tribes is that Harry really *does* keep on and on and on about the differences between his tribe (liberal artsy middle class remain voters) and Michelle's (working class leave voters). I found him a truly unsympathetic character, constantly mansplaining at Michelle about why she thinks what she thinks, and why that's different to him and his friends. He's tiring to read.

That was my main difficulty with the book. Harry may well be a perfectly-drawn character in terms of his condescension and his ability to overthink everything. And maybe that's a good thing to be confronting readers with – am I like Harry? Are all of us who're likely to read Two Tribes like Harry? Christ!) It's just that by halfway through, the prospect of his next bout of word-soup was making my heart sink even before starting to read.

I do love the setup: a 23rd-century historian piecing together the lives of two ordinary people in 2016 through their diaries and social-media postings. I was a lot more interested in the 23rd century characters and world – after a destructive war and with the climate emergency wreaking terrible effects – than I was in endless conversations in 2016 about Brexit.

This may be a very personal response: perhaps there'll be lots of readers with more of an appetite for that. The book does have some sharp and important points to make about the insularity of much of the post-Brexit-vote conversations, particularly among some remain voters ("they kept interrupting one another, not to disagree but because their need to agree was so vehement").

I also enjoyed some of its jabs, from the imagined 23rd-century perspective, at social media in general and Twitter in particular. "His timeline, this little stream is called, or, more expressively, his feed. Like chicken pellets, as Harry observes somewhere. Or pigswill." Also, on Twitter pile-ons: "Harry didn't join in. He didn't have the energy. But for forty five minutes, neither did he have the energy to withdraw."

The verdict on our current society can be brutally refreshing too. "People like Harry and Michelle were indeed fucking up the world, and that theirs was the first generation in history knowingly to fuck up the world, and yet still carry on doing it. That's why some people these days refer to their era as the Age of Selfishness." Oof.

But... a lot of the characters felt a bit too much like mouthpieces for views on Brexit and/or society, rather than fully fleshed-out characters. This may be deliberate: these are characters and dialogue created by Zoe, the 23rd-century historian, who's writing a novel based on the diaries. But I found it a bit wearing to read. The ending also felt quite... sudden.

Two Tribes is a clever idea with some sharp points to make. Maybe it's just unfortunate timing. Mid-Covid-19 pandemic, I'm looking to escape into fiction as much as possible, and a bunch of unpleasant people banging on about Brexit is not my happy reading place just now!

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a free advance reader copy (ARC) via NetGalley, in return for an honest review.

Thoroughly good read! Drawing on the fallout of the 2016 referendum and the arguments for both Leave and Remain, Two Tribes examines the differences within the social hierarchy and the deep divide in the social system, the influences that shape our view of self and others and the inevitably of unforeseen consequences The novel follows Cally and Zoe, 250 years from now, whose job is to record the historical map of society. Through the 250 years old diaries of Michelle and Harry, the future historians weave an imagined and fictionalised unfolding of their developing relationship and their diametrically opposed views of the class system.