Water by Lloyd Jones 

(Y Lolfa, £8.95)

THIS book by Lloyd Jones (pictured) is being promoted by Y Lolfa as a “cli-fi” or climate fiction novel yet it draws on a much older literary tradition — that of the near-future dystopia.

It centres around life on the farm at Dolfrwynog in remote rural Wales that has collapsed in upon itself because, where once the land provided a reasonable livelihood, now little can be grown or reared. 

In part this is due to the increasingly extreme weather patterns but also because the younger generation, reliant upon just-in-time globalised supply chains, has forgotten much of the wisdom of their predecessors. Even the names of common plants cannot be recalled.

As the family’s horizons have shrunk, so their relationships with each other have shrivelled and gone bad. 

Uncle Wil focuses on his remaining livestock, a last link to more productive days. His sister, Elin, lives in a fantasy world of denial. Her two children, Mari and Huw are largely abandoned to make of this sparse existence what they will.

Yet the outside world continues to encroach upon what little remains to the family. 

The sea is rising and threatens not only to overpower these survivors but brings with it an even more destructive flotsam and jetsam — outsiders fleeing the violence of a dying and barren urban society.

Jones writes with a serrated precision. The predicament of people clinging onto the edges of physical and psychological existence is cut out in narrow and pinpoint-accurate sentences in a book of bone and little spare flesh.

It’s clear that Jones is in no doubt as to what has caused this downfall — capitalism and its inability to address the inherent contradictions within itself. 

“Years of vacuous doublespeak by a generation of stupid and ineffectual politicians has led to nothing. 

“And then, suddenly, it was too late,” he writes.

Water is a tough but essential read in that it demands the resolve of the reader to both appreciate the consequences of our carelessness and to get out there and build a better society based on the needs of all and not the endless greed of a few.

Paul Simon