The Cut

The Cut is a commissioned novel responding to Brexit. Published on the first anniversary of the EU referendum on June 23rd 2017, it will be a fictional exploration of the forces that split Britain apart.

The Cut is a wound, of course, but it is more than that. Cairo Jukes walks the towpaths of "the cut", the Black Country term for the canals that web this small region of England, the open veins of an old industrial order. And then there is Dudley -a town at the heart of the Black Country - where a young woman runs through the market-place with her clothes on fire. Who she is? Why is she burning? And what part has Cairo played in her life? We follow these two characters across a single day in Brexit-era Britain.