More broadly, the three novels remind us of the importance of the everyday, with its eventlessness and flat affects. Attachments and small acts of kindness help us stay human in the context of ever-increasing slow violence that is but a step away from the actual violence described by Veena Das even in the Global North. 6 The everyday is the scene... See more

She still tries to muster sufficient cruel optimism to go on: We have to live with this rising tide of future, leaking and sopping over everything, claiming cities and sectors, until we’re in the future, already – that dystopian future of surveillance, video calls and VR headsets, and viral epidemics spread by globalization, and the 24-hour news... See more

ne of the things we’re learning, we of the end times, is that humanity’s ending appears to be slow, lacking in cliffhangers or indeed any satisfactory narrative shape; characterised, for the lucky, by the gradual vindication of accumulating dread, which is entirely compatible with and sometimes a motive for buying stuff. (Moss, 2021: 117)

. This also changed one’s relationship with the inconvenience of other people: ‘People were standing apart, silently, glancing up and checking each other, swaying and adjusting their position, like nervous cattle. The eyes above masks and scarves were tense, avoidant’ (Hall, 2021: 130). The friction of everyday interaction has become too tense to... See more

Many of the routines that surround the situation tragedy are realised through the con-sumer economy. Pollard’s narrator is aware of the manufactured nature of her desires, but in a Berlantian vein, she hoards hopeful images about how the family’s lives add up to something: ‘like every girl brought up to be a good capitalist, I want to be the... See more

The arrival of the disaster disrupts the ordinary and creates an intense, if temporary, feeling of living through history, scary but at the same time exhilarating. This affective peak, though, is quickly replaced by a boring new normal, as the crisis once again becomes ordinary. These affects appear particularly flat against the emotional social... See more

The small acts of kindness of Moss’ novel do not exist here, as most interaction takes place in the synthetic affective public sphere where connection is illusory.

Switching on a light, buying a friend a coffee, pulling on a T-shirt, driving to school pick-up, buying raspberries out of season, watching a panel show with no black people – with almost every daily action I contribute to world misery. If good is not to harm others, then I live within a system that has made goodness impossible. (Pollard, 2022: 25)

ollard’s narrator ironically decrees: ‘Thou shalt work from home; thou shalt go back into your office before you bankrupt Pret’ (2022: 145). She captures not just the inconsistency of the messaging, but also the cynical ways in which the needs of businesses were often placed above those of individuals.