Book review by Kevin Stapleton
Tunde Farrand’s Wolf Country is a thrilling dystopian novel set in an all too near and all too familiar future.
With shades of the Hunger Games and Logan’s Run (teenagers – ask your parents), the world of Wolf Country sees the nation divided between High Spenders, Mid Spenders and Low Spenders. Those capable of working gain a ‘Right to Reside’ but woe betide anyone who isn’t so capable, and who becomes ‘non-profitable.’
Our hero, Alice, is a (rather irritating, at first) Mid Spender who completely believes in the system, until her husband Philip mysteriously disappears. With her world turned upside down, Alice investigates and has no choice but to question the beliefs and values she has grown up with. She also finds out some disturbing truths about her own family.
It’s a highly contemporary novel, critiquing consumerism, the dehumanisation of those deemed unworthy and the mechanisms by which the wider population is drawn into supporting reactionary measures like the Dignatoriums. A highly visual novel, that speeds along. Well worth reading.
