Christopher Fairfax, a young priest, is trying to reach a remote Exmoor village before the strict night time curfew begins. Lost and uneasy amid the ruins of a fallen civilisation, he is about to face a series of events that will shatter his beliefs… and reveal a deadly secret.
Described by Reader’s Digest as “brilliantly imaginative”, and “truly surprising” by the Evening Standard, what did the members of SWFT’s Wellbeing Reading Group make of it? (Potential spoiler alert!)
Firstly, this book was not what several of our group were expecting. Instead of a medieval murder mystery, with priests as both victim and pseudo-detective, they were instead reading a dystopian tension-ridden thriller. This clever twist on an expected formula had clues from the start, with the mention of a parakeet in the opening pages being a subtle hint that all might not be as you expect.
The novel is set in 15th century England – but not the 15th century that saw The Hundred Years’ War, War of the Roses, and the rise of the Tudors. Instead the calendar was reset to 666, the number of the beast, after an unspecified apocalyptic event which turned the world against ‘scientism’ and back to religion. We wondered if religion would rise again if something really happened and concluded that it probably would as people would need something to cling to.
The title itself could be taken several ways – literally referring to the medieval concept of biphasic sleep (people sleeping in two separate stages). In Fairfax’s England, people didn’t leave their houses between sleeps because of the curfew, but at the village he sees people out on the streets defying it. However Second Sleep could also mean the world waking up after civilisation has crashed, and starting again from scratch. However without the ‘scientism’ of the ancients, would the people really be able to recreate things like the Industrial Revolution?
The realisation that the ancients who were mentioned in the novel were actually our present (and future) was a bit of a shock to some – although the sentence “An entire generation’s correspondence and memories had vanished into this mysterious entity the antiquarians called ‘The Cloud’” did hit home rather as we continue to head towards a purely digital world. Also the mention of the symbol of the apple with a bite taken out of it as being a sign of ‘the ancients’ hubris’ definitely gave pause for thought.
The characters felt well rounded, although not always likeable – which added to the sense of realism in this dystopia. While we generally enjoyed the novel, and appreciated the cleverness of the tale, the majority of the SWFT Reading Group had one main problem with Robert Harris’s The Second Sleep. The ending. Comments such as ‘it ended abruptly – I had to go back and check that it was finished’, ‘the ending was a copout’, ‘[it] felt like a 10 year old rushing to finish their homework’, ‘I felt it didn’t end properly’, ‘I got the feeling that the author had run out of ideas and couldn’t think how to finish it’, ‘brilliant – until the end’ were among the many views expressed.
Despite this, or perhaps because of it, we scored it 4/5 – but the score might have been higher if the ending hadn’t felt so rushed.
Lily and Safa were best friends growing up. Now, Lily is the nation’s favourite breakfast TV presenter and Safa, once a renowned journalist, is reeling from a recent fall from grace.
When news breaks about suspicious bruises on Lily’s body, Safa attempts to rekindle their old friendship. But Lily claims the bruises are nothing to worry about.
And then one night the police are called to Lily’s home. Lily is strangely calm – and a body lies dead at her feet.
Lily pleads not guilty, and then says nothing more. Driven by her desire to give a voice to all victims, Safa begins her own investigation into what happened that night.
But Safa is not prepared for what her quest for justice will uncover …
Want to know more? Pick up your copy from the Education Centre Library now.
We’ll be discussing What Happens in the Dark at our next Teams meeting on Wednesday 17th December at 1pm. Can’t make it? Why not read the story and email your thoughts to library@swft.nhs.uk in time for the meeting.
Find out more about our reading groups here or take a look at some of our previous book reviews.
We look forward to seeing you!