Chief of the Flagellants

Wow: “The King of England…has abdicated in favour of his brother, now known as Andy One. Sickened by years of corrupt and incompetent Presidents, the United States has petitioned Andy One to resume sovereignty over America. In England, the government of Christian Coalition Socialists has been ousted in a coup d’etat. The survivors have gone underground, led by High John the Conqueror. Chief of the Flagellants, a squad of paramilitary sadomasochists.”

With a back-cover blurb like that, I just had to buy Jim Younger’s newly-published first novel, High John the Conqueror. It’s not unduly kinky  (and I can’t decide whether it’s a brilliantly original book that will win every literary award going – or simply very, very, very weird). But there were at least a couple of moments that made me wonder whether the author was ‘one of us’….

There’s the description, for example, of the actors playing the ‘Flagellant Faction’ in a play:

“Their scourges weren’t the real thing but strands of twine threaded through corks. Playfully they tossed each other with light strokes. Most of the genuine flails were now in the hands of collectors of Commune memorabilia. Last I heard they were fetching serious money.”

(Anyone checked the price of tawses on eBay lately?!).

And then…

“Your father was incandescent with anger. He took the cat-‘o-ninety to Jude and flogged her mercilessly – with her consent, she says, although I would call it uninformed consent…”

…presumably as opposed to informedconsent (.co.uk, the excellent  fetish site). Fascinating book all round, really