Mark Burrows (2022) Coo

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On page 5 of the foreword, author Mark Burrows tells the reader, ‘the following is a work of fiction’, and whatever Kafka was thinking, people don’t turn into pigeons, but Tories are still cunts. Realism begins with truth. He might not have used those exact words. I might be factional with his realities.

Anger at the fuck-you world we’re forced to live in. Shit trickles down doctrines of Tory policy makers, you couldn’t make up. ‘Alone in a universe that doesn’t give a fuck’ about Milton Friedman. And if you’ve read The Celestine Prophecies (emmmm I probably have) you’re probably up your own arse and voted for Boris fucking Johnson and think comedians like Alan Partridge are comedians. You can go and fuck yourself as well.

I know the narrator, but I can’t remember his name. It’s on the page. But I’m off the page. I’m very angry too. I really should be paying attention. I read this book in one go. I’d read the larger manuscript on ABCtales at around 70 000 words. This is the slimmed down version. Around 17 000 words. Most editors ask you to knock around 10% off the word total and bring it back, so they can laugh and poke fun at you—payment in advance.

Feel superior as Nikki, the HRD, who is ‘very excited…We’ve been talking for ages about how we can differentiate ourselves in a crowded marketplace. How we can create the wow factor? What can we do that is embracing diversity, inclusion as well as being willing to think outside the box.’

Box ticking. The non-Keynesian answer:  payment in bird food. And it’s not even Captain Birdseye.

Mark Burrows has dropped much of the exposition. Let the characters speak for themselves. Staccato stabs of reality.  It’s happening now. Present tense. People really are transitioning into frozen slobs. They are being scapebirded. Your Tory scum something-needs-to-be-done brigade are getting very angry.

The narrator wonders if there is such a thing as working-class solidarity. We lost the class war, but also the propaganda war, we didn’t know we were righting. Nothing left but nihilism, self-hatred, chicken shit and and scrapping among ourselves.  We’re looking at The Final Solution and extra time. Leaders that will sort it. Get it done. But we begin with box ticking and back patting. All sounds familiar. This is not A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, because even then chirpy, chirpy, cheap, cheap things were getting better.

Listen and hear the truth. It won’t set you free, but you might reconsider what we consider normal in twenty-first-century Britain. 

‘What if? What fucking if? It’d be a relief to finally have something with half-decent sick-pay, holidays, a pension. What is a pension? Dole money for older people. Very cosy. Not that I’m going to grow old. Girlfriends have told me that already. Dead by thirty-five’.

Read on, Trainspotting for fellow birdies. A Coo world. Winging it. There must be a better fucking life.