Queen High is CJ Carey’s sequel to her much acclaimed novel Widowland, both books are counter factual dystopian novels in a similar vein to 1984, Fatherland and Brave New World. They are set in a 1950s Britain where Lord Halifax became Prime Minister rather than Winston Churchill and has formed an ‘Alliance’ with Nazi Germany. Wallis Simpson sits on the throne and to all intents and purposes Britain is occupied; placed under the protection of Nazi philosopher and ideologue Alfred Rosenberg. In Rosenberg’s Britain women are told they are the most important citizens and they have been categorised as such. At the age of fourteen they are ranked in a caste system using a classification system that was designed by Rosenberg in real life, measuring ‘racial, physical, hereditary and ancestral characteristics.’
Gelis, named after Hitler’s niece, who was considered the ideal of womanhood, are at the top of the caste system and Friedhofsfrau (cemetery women), or Freda’s are at the bottom. However, they have become the custodians of secret forgotten knowledge. This system was rigorously enforced by the Women’s Institute, which has become one of the most feared institutions in the country.
Carey takes a wry view of this system through her lead character Rose Ransom, who lives the privileged life of a Geli, working for the Ministry of Culture as a Corrector. This involves ‘abridging, editing and redacting the classics of English literature, removing subversive portrayals of women, freeing the texts from suggestions of female self-assertion and empowerment.’ This results in some very amusing rewrites to such tomes of British literature as the iconic opening of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a womb must be in want of a husband.”
However Rose has become a dedicated member of the resistance, subverted by the power of the work she must sanitise. She starts to remember the time before the occupation, that had been eradicated from the collective consciousness by the regime’s program of mass brain washing, administered through the department of Unlearning.
Rose is sent by her German overseers to assess Queen Wallis’s loyalty, ahead of a visit by President Eisenhower. Rose’s world soon starts to spiral out of control as she is caught up in the Queen’s cocktail-soaked web of intrigues and her possession of The Worst Book in The World. Rose must rely on society’s outcasts, the Freda’s to tip the balance.
Queen High is a compulsive literary thriller, with a sharp satirical edge. It ripples with humour, CJ Carey obviously had a lot of fun writing the book. Freed from the straight jacket of historical facts, allowing her to create a world where the statue of Queen Boudica on the Embankment, has been replaced by a statue of Hitler’s niece and the German occupiers admire Etonians as their version of the SS. But Carey manages to strike a perfect balance between tongue in cheek and brutality in her depiction of a ruthless authoritarian regime.
Queen High by C.J. Carey is out now. Alan Bardos is the author of Rising Tide.
