Morgan Redston

The Treacle Year Morgan Redston

Almost happy, nearly sober, not quite the end of the world... In 1918 the Spanish Influenza began simultaneously in Bombay and Boston, before killing more people than the First World War. The influenza pandemic of 2018 seemed less deadly, at first, but then came unexpected post-viral depression, as the world began to whimper. In the Scottish town of St Andrews, geology lecturer, Glynn Hughes, struggles to survive and reaches for his spark in the darkness, a mysterious younger woman called Nia, but how can a relationship be 'normal' when depression and alcoholism are tearing families apart? Morgan Redston's first novel plays with the tropes of post-apocalyptic sci-fi epics to create a powerful family drama, taking the reader from Scotland to New York and the West Coast of the U. S. A. Glynn Hughes finds himself an unlikely hero when the fabric of society is gnawed away as mental illness becomes the norm. Older brother, Matt, seems to have a perfect, settled life, but succumbs to drink, and drives away his wife, Abi, and his two small children. Younger brother Jamie, a photo-journalist based in New York, sees the impact of the epidemic from the other side of the Atlantic, as disease respects no national borders. Worse is still to come, when the Cascadia Subduction Zone causes a terrifying earthquake and tsunamis that drown the Pacific North West. In the new, fragile world, no-one feels safe. Some people take refuge in birdwatching, fan fiction or the care of rabbits, but the best protection seemed to be a black sense of humour. And what was with this new anti-depressant being marketed so aggressively? And why were the women coping better than the men?