My first post last year was about “White Riot”, the debut of a trilogy of novels by Joe Thomas. The second intallment has just been published and is a great read.
White Riot begins with the 1978 Rock Against Racism carnival in Victoria Park. Red Menace kicks off with Live Aid, as this book covers 1985-1987. The contrast between these two large music events also evokes something different happening in popular culture and protest. (The author’s love for The Style Council is partially compensated for by some nice insights in the reggae and dancehall scene in Hackney!) The passage of time is also marked by the characters growing older and navigating through some of the big events of the era like the Broadwater Farm riot, the Wapping printworkers dispute and the related corrupt redevelopment of Docklands.
So yes, a lot of the action takes place outside of Hackney, but it is all underpinned by the creeping intensification of police involvement in the drugs trade in Stoke Newington and the various spycops and grasses that are increasingly compromised and fucked up. (One of my main reservations about White Riot is that the spycops were portrayed as heroic – the way that contradictions of the job lead to inevitable cynicism and hurting ordinary people is dealt with really well in this sequel).
As with the first book, there is a tonne of factual source material used, much of it from this site and our scans on archive.org. There are a number of documents quoted that brought a smile of recognition to my face and some very useful endnotes on sources too. The author is always very effusive with his thanks to this site in his books and public appearances and I remain very happy that he has been able to bring it all to life so effectively.
Perhaps the most enduring theme of the book for me was its focus on ordinary people trying to find their way through extraordinary times – there are no great heroes here, just men and women trying to make sense of the world and do their best in it. The last chapter in Red Menace includes references to a number of violent or fatal incidents in Stoke Newington police station and the setting up of Hackney Community Defence Association to address widespread police corruption in the Borough. I am looking forward to seeing how the third book in the trilogy tackles these themes.
Red Menace by Joe Thomas is published by Arcadia. Maybe try and get copy via one of Hackney’s numerous and excellent indepdent book shops, or order it online through Hive?
Some key documents used for the book include:
The Radical History of Hackney 