TITLE: Queen High
AUTHOR: C.J. Carey
PUBLISHER: Quercus Books
ISBN: 9781529412055
PODCAST EPISODE: Episode 119: Rewriting History
REVIEWER: Hilary Wilson
On October 13th 2022, Quercus released the long-awaited sequel to Widowland, C.J. Carey’s Queen High. This dystopian novel is set in England in the 1950s, an alternative history where the UK had allied with Germany during WW2. This is an electrifying read, full of intrigue and surprises, that readers won’t want to put down for even a second.
Widowland, published in 2021, sets the scene of this alternative history. By 1953 England had been part of the Grand Alliance with Germany for 15 years. Our protagonist, Rose Ransom, works for the Ministry of Culture editing literature to be fit for public consumption. But how would exposure to literature affect a person over time? How might Rose, on a visit to the dreaded Widowland where the older unmarried women live, be changed by discussing the widow’s lives and beliefs before? Could folklore alter a person’s very soul?
Queen High picks up two years after Widowland. The nation has had to contend with the death of the Leader, and has grown even stricter about the female caste system over that time. Rose has continued her job at the Ministry of Culture, now editing poetry in addition to the classical books too well-known to be fully erased from memory. Like the book that came before it, this book deals heavily in the meaning of writing and symbols to people - how that survives even the toughest of times and what it represents.
What Carey does in Queen High and Widowland before it is to portray how certain beliefs and ideas transcend even the most stringent of social structures. In societies where every communication is monitored, codes such as floriography once more flourish - a good reminder to readers that even now there are few around who don’t recognize the symbolism behind a single red rose, or a sunflower as a message of resistance.
Carey portrays the powerful influence of folklore as an act of resistance through these books. Fairytales and jokes can be used to criticize a ruling party, and poetry to encode messages. These books remind us that in times of strife a flower is rarely just a flower, and that the stories that we tell ourselves about our respective pasts can alter our entire future. Queen High is a worthy sequel to Widowland and will be an eagerly-awaited read to anyone who enjoyed Atwood’s dystopian novels or The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. It’s a timely and fascinating book that offers a message of hope about any possible future.
AUTHOR: C.J. Carey
PUBLISHER: Quercus Books
ISBN: 9781529412055
PODCAST EPISODE: Episode 119: Rewriting History
REVIEWER: Hilary Wilson
On October 13th 2022, Quercus released the long-awaited sequel to Widowland, C.J. Carey’s Queen High. This dystopian novel is set in England in the 1950s, an alternative history where the UK had allied with Germany during WW2. This is an electrifying read, full of intrigue and surprises, that readers won’t want to put down for even a second.
Widowland, published in 2021, sets the scene of this alternative history. By 1953 England had been part of the Grand Alliance with Germany for 15 years. Our protagonist, Rose Ransom, works for the Ministry of Culture editing literature to be fit for public consumption. But how would exposure to literature affect a person over time? How might Rose, on a visit to the dreaded Widowland where the older unmarried women live, be changed by discussing the widow’s lives and beliefs before? Could folklore alter a person’s very soul?
Queen High picks up two years after Widowland. The nation has had to contend with the death of the Leader, and has grown even stricter about the female caste system over that time. Rose has continued her job at the Ministry of Culture, now editing poetry in addition to the classical books too well-known to be fully erased from memory. Like the book that came before it, this book deals heavily in the meaning of writing and symbols to people - how that survives even the toughest of times and what it represents.
What Carey does in Queen High and Widowland before it is to portray how certain beliefs and ideas transcend even the most stringent of social structures. In societies where every communication is monitored, codes such as floriography once more flourish - a good reminder to readers that even now there are few around who don’t recognize the symbolism behind a single red rose, or a sunflower as a message of resistance.
Carey portrays the powerful influence of folklore as an act of resistance through these books. Fairytales and jokes can be used to criticize a ruling party, and poetry to encode messages. These books remind us that in times of strife a flower is rarely just a flower, and that the stories that we tell ourselves about our respective pasts can alter our entire future. Queen High is a worthy sequel to Widowland and will be an eagerly-awaited read to anyone who enjoyed Atwood’s dystopian novels or The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. It’s a timely and fascinating book that offers a message of hope about any possible future.