The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again - M John Harrison

 Now this was a discovery for me.   I admit, I'd not heard of Harrison, notwithstanding he was a pillar of British sci fi fantasy in the Sixties and Seventies, despite the fact he was associated with Michael Moorcock, that China Mieville is a fan, and that he qualifies (sort of, originally) as a local author.   But I know him now.   And I was blown away by this, his novel from 2020.

It's a contemporary tale of two peripheral people: Shaw, whose first name never becomes clear (it's probably Alex), and Victoria Norman.   They drift into one another's orbit in London, then drift apart again.   Victoria inherits her mother's house in Shrewsbury and Shaw gets a gig economy job, working for, in wh Tim, who keeps an office on a barge in Brent and who might possibly live next door to Shaw in the subdivided HMO in Wharf Street.   Tim has self-published a book and keeps a blog about ancient DNA.   Shaw meanwhile seeks a sort of therapy from a medium called Annie Swann, who seems to be Tim's sister.  Tim gets Shaw to record his sessions with Annie to use as material for his blog.

In Shrewsbury, Victoria gets local tradesmen in to do up the house.   They are very local - they might live next door - and are very tribal.   One of them, the roofer, is incredibly keen on The Water Babies, even keener that Victoria should read it.   Victoria makes a new friend in Pearl, who runs a cafe and turns out to be the daughter of Chris (who prefers to be called Ossie) and is the one who apparently lives next door to Victoria.   The building containing Pearl's cafe is another HMO, in which some very strange people dwell, including all the tradesmen Ossie coralled into working on Victoria's house.   Pearl disappears - Victoria sees her do it, and it is very strange.

The novel is very strange and compelling.   Harrison plays on the littoral nature of his settings and luxuriates in their psychogeography.   Despite being hopeless failures in life - because they fail to engage with life - Shaw and Victoria are characters we get to like and trust.   The secondary characters like Shaw's mum in the care home and her colourful marital backstory, Pearl and Tim and especially, all have their charm which is coupled with threat.  The fantasy element is crucial, yet downplayed.   It doesn't need to be explained, it just needs to be there.

I would have probably passed had it not been for the eyecatching cover image by Micaela Alcaino, which was right up my street, so I picked up the book, which was absolutely 100% what I'd been looking for.   An object lesson, there, in the importance of cover art.