BOOK REVIEW
Secret Orbit
By Ken Edwards
Published by Grand Iota, paperback 254pp, £12.50
Review by Pete Donohue
St Leonards author Ken Edwards will have his fourth novel Secret Orbit published on 1 November. It will be launched locally at The Hastings Bookshop in Trinity Street on Thursday 3 November.
In a flat in a dismal part of London overlooking a park a man known only as [FORENAME] [SURNAME] lies dead and slowly decomposing. Because he is un-able to speak for himself, his story is told by a narrator. When Mr [SURNAME] was still in the land of the living, it was rumoured that he’d been committed to the dreaded Holding Pen, and as nobody escapes from the Holding Pen, how come he’s lying dead in his own flat? The comedy unfolds in 33 chapters mirroring Dante’s cantos, set in a hellish world uncannily like post-Brexit Britain.
Is he dead or is he alive? Is he recounting a dream of his life, experiencing a psychotic episode, or is he reporting the trials and tribulations of us all? The man known only as [FORENAME] [SURNAME] has something to tell us. The biggest question is will we listen to him? This is the modern world, combined with flashbacks through the decades leading up to it and flashforwards towards a future dystopian bed the powerless masses seem to be allowing to be made for them.
Yes, there are echoes of pre-vious subversive and prophetic writers here, but I won’t bore you with a list of them – as you read through this novel you may well recognise them anyway. This novel, however, is anchored firmly in 2022’s dysfunctional Britain. Edwards’ protagonist is both illusory and illuminating. He could be me, he could be you. He could be a dying man desperately trying to formulate his memories into some sort of modern jazz riff that makes sense of his life – or any of our lives. He could be
a higher power reflecting back to humanity what it has done to itself. He may be all of these things.
Edwards plays with narrative as if it is a cosmic game of spin the bottle. Mr no-name betrays no ego throughout the novel, as an undercurrent of Zen creeps through its pages almost unnoticeably. A chillingly sinister use of seemingly innocuous words and phrases, such as ‘safeguarding’ adds to the tension and reminds us of the lies and distorted information that already pervade our own world, both nationally and globally. Whose safety is being guarded within this secret orbit, and by whom? The answer is not too difficult to determine and equate to the society many of us are struggling within.
As his physical body de-composes, ahead of his mental and philosophical faculties, [FORENAME] [SURNAME] begins to see death as some kind of lockdown and lockdown as some kind of (potential new insight into) death. After a week of him being an undiscovered corpse, we are told: “He who without being dead enters the kingdom of the dead, with its walls of iron protected by deep waters, must look out for himself, for nobody else will.”
As the narration continues, the circumstances of this seemingly thinking cadaver become no less clear, with the story coloured by time distortions that flit between life and death, and graphic descriptions of the bio-chemical processes of a rotting human being – think exploding blood vessels, skin shedding, bacterial multiplication and colonisation by maggots.
Trapped in this horrific purgatory [SURNAME] appears to remain calm as a cast of shadowy characters come and go to deliver subplots reflecting some of the issues many of us face within today’s society. There are care assistants, a doctor, a priest, a window cleaner, water treatment salesmen and
a mysterious temporary lodger who claims to have visited hell but is now helping other tenants in the building to stand up to exploitation. Which of these are benign and which are abusive can be difficult to tell.
The story of this one decomp-osing individual takes the reader through many more twists and turns before reaching some kind of conclusion. Does he find an end to his questions, or at least peace? To find out whether the narrator here believes that the fading away of human consciousness leads to mere nothingness or some-thing closer to enlightenment or superconsciousness, you will have to read the book.
• Secret Orbit is available from local independent bookshops, online retailers or at
www.grandiota.co.uk/ken-edwards.php
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply