Books
William Lane
Saturation
In William Lane’s dystopian new novel, details are hard to come by. Not just because of Lane’s authorial omission, the drip-feed of exposition that we expect in speculative fiction, but because no one in the book can remember much, neither about the past – how the world got to this point – nor the present.
There has been some sort of climate catastrophe, that much is clear. Half the city is submerged in water and what is left is mouldering. There is no media – the tip is full of abandoned technologies such as computers and weapons – and there is no recognisable society. With no extended family and no children, Ambrose and Ursula live by the half-remembered rules of daily life and through the guidance of Yoremind, an app that rewards them with points for going to work and attending sports events that culminate in mob violence.
This mass amnesia is never fully explained but this is not an entirely realist world. A Shirley Jackson-esque uncanniness prevails, and the story is full of strange coincidences and surreal encounters. Things operate on a kind of dream logic: on holiday they immediately bump into significant people from both of their pasts; Ambrose sees a creature in the water who is one moment a mermaid, then a seal, then an old flame.
Perhaps because of this dream logic, the plot meanders, lulls and accelerates, surprising you in its treatment of plot points that might have been, in lesser hands, a touch too familiar. But it is the struggle within both Ambrose and Ursula over the past – whether it is best to remember or forget – that keeps us invested.
Like all good dystopian fiction, Saturation offers parallels with the present. Ambrose and Ursula live in a world that forgets the mistakes of the past and is destined to repeat them. They are encouraged to get on with life and not to think too hard about the violence happening around them and in their name, to be content to live their small lives in a world where something is clearly wrong. In this way, Saturation captures very effectively our late-capitalist present, especially as we bear witness to a live-streamed genocide that we are told to ignore. As the story escalates and an autocrat rises to power on the back of xenophobia and a war on books, the allegorical dimension of the novel becomes undeniable.
Transit Lounge, 288pp, $32.99
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on May 3, 2025 as "Saturation".
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