The Godless Boys [Paperback]

If measured by church attendance and similar statistics Britain is one of the least religious and most secular societies on the planet. The notion of this country turning into an Iranian style theocracy run by a militant Church of England is quite unimaginable. Yet that's essentially the background to Wood's novel, which is set in an alternative England of 1986. From what I can gather a fundamentalist Church of England runs the country (which is always described as England and never Britain, so maybe the Scots and Welsh have upped and left in this alternative universe, or never were in the first place).

I found the alternative universe of The Godless Boys fascinating because sometimes a single person or event can change the entire course of history. What happened to make England a theocracy? It's interesting to speculate but Woods doesn't go deeper, which is a shame. The story of the expulsions draws on tactics used by UK governments in our own time, most notably in Northern Ireland, including internment, something called the Sunday Agreement designed to bring a peace process of sorts, and so on.

The Godless Boys has been published by coincidence at the same time as the first English language production of Ibsen's Emperor and Galilean at the National Theatre in London. This tells the story of how the Emperor Constantine saw Christianity as a threat and co-opted it into the Roman state religion. Therefore what was a small, radical sect that challenged the very notion of hierarchy, wealth and power, speaking very clearly for the dispossessed, became instead, formally at least, part of the state and has remained so ever since. Almost as good as Sarah Hall's outstanding The Carhullan Army.

In a Britain where the Church has seized absolute control of the country, members of the Secular Movement have been exiled to The Island, where religion is banned. Any outward expression of religion - praying, owning a Bible, even visiting the Island's abandoned church - is punished harshly by a gang of boys wanting to keep their Island pure.

This summary reads like a dystopian future, but the novel is actually set in the near past - 1986. In a way, this makes the novel resonate more clearly - it's all too easy to get detatched from dystopian novels and say "that could never happen to us!", whereas the political situation in The Godless Boys feels entirely plausible.

All of that is, of course, just a backdrop for the actual story, which involves two boys attempting to grow up, a girl seeking her mother, and the relationships between those three. Love, betrayal, faith, forgiveness, and fear all play a part in this book.

The concept of secularism becoming as dogmatic in its own way as religion is hardly a new one, but this novel is well-crafted, with several different POV narrators intertwined in a gripping narrative. There are some very sad moments, characters, and relationships explored - it's not a novel that's going to leave you with a smile on your face, as too much has been lost.

But the overall message, of the danger of holding onto grudges and absolute belief, is tentatively hopeful. An excellent debut.

Set in an alternative history where England is ruled by the Church and the secularist community has been banished to a solitary island, Naomi Wood's debut novel, "The Godless Boys", is a story about a dramatic week on the island. Nathaniel, the son of an original member of the secular movement, leads a gang of teenage boys, the Malades, who are determined to protect the island from any religious influence. This means intimidating potential "gots" and prowling the streets at night. Eliza Michalka lives a sorry existence on the island - a part-time prostitute and a part-time undertaker who drops corpses into the surrounding ocean - she pines after her lost love, the aloof fishmonger Arthur Stansky. However, this week all their lives will be changed when Sarah, daughter of 1976 church-burner, Laura Wicks, stows away to seek out her mother on The Island...

We are living in a time that has seen the rise of fundamental religiosity and New Atheism. Therefore it isn't difficult to see where the author's inspiration came from. Why she decided to set it in 1986 is another matter altogether. There is little in the way of obvious parallels with the real 1986, but I guess it helps to keep matters simple without the presence of the internet and the normalcy of mobile phones. The whole book is markedly minimalistic without being pretentious. This is perhaps reflective of the two radically opposing philosophies that form the backdrop of the story.

Wood does not explore the details of either the Christian dogma that now rules England or the strict secularist movement of The Island. Two vital dates are given for when secularists, usually involved in anti-religious activity such as church burning, were deported - 1951 and 1976 - and we are given an overview of the violent struggles between the state and rebels, but otherwise the history of the whole conflict is kept down to a minimum. Likewise aside from Christian imagery and the hatred certain characters, such as Nathaniel's Malades, have towards religion, there are little intricate details regarding what each side actually believes. Despite one newspaper critic describing The Malades as Richard Dawkins in bovver boots, there is nothing whatsoever mentioned regarding a scientific argument against the Christians. The Secular Movement's problems with the church are never lain out or described. Therefore, this could be a story about any society divided into polarized factions.

This leaves the story to be entirely character-driven and concerned with the relationships its players experience over seven days. One man, an ardent first generation secularist, will re-evaluate his relationship with God. Nathaniel will be made to reconsider his devotion to The Malades. Arthur and Eliza will have to look at the personal defensive walls they have created. However, the driving force for change in all of this - the story's catalyst - is Sarah. She enters having already received a revelation after 10 years not knowing her mother had been arrested for being involving a Secular Movement terrorist attack. Although the story follows her fact-seeking mission, she seems to be the only character that isn't experiencing personal changes in her attitude, having already gone through a dramatic personal crisis.

Despite some of its adult content, "The Godless Boys" reminds me of the typical sort of material read for GCSE English. This is not a slight on its simplicity, but I think there might be a lot teenagers can relate to in the text. "The Godless Boys" is also a story about consequences and the way different individuals react to dramatic changes. Nathaniel is a part of his tragic father's legacy, but little does he realize he is leaving a legacy of his own in The Malades. His personal philosophy and beliefs have their own consequences. Wood succeeds in getting this across, providing certain moral twists reminiscent of David McKenna's "American History X" that provokes a lot of thought.