Carolyn Ride seeks out some cheery reading with the recently re-published dystopian classic that inspired the cult film Soylent Green.

I bet Nicholas Stern has read this book.

Maybe you haven’t read this classic work of environmental dystopia, published in 1966 and set in 1999 New York, but you may have seen the 1973 film adaptation, Soylent Green. OK, Harrison got his dates skewed but it doesn’t make this book any less convincing or prescient.

In the novel, 1999 New York is overpopulated, constantly under threat from droughts and heatwaves, and food is so scarce people riot every time their rations are cut. The rations in question are tasteless seaweed crackers. Only the frail and old get to supplement their meagre diet with the occasional teaspoon of peanut butter and meat flakes (made from snails). Fresh fruit and vegetables are unheard of (especially since the US is mostly dustbowl).

Diseases like kwashiorkor, a protein deficiency, are common. Only the rich can dream of such unattainable luxuries as showers, privacy, and the occasional soylent (soy and lentil) steak.

Overworked cop Andy Rusch has to battle riots, heatwaves and millennial hysteria to find whoever killed a wealthy businessman. Meanwhile, his friend Sol fights in support of birth control; Shirl, the murdered businessman’s kept woman, has to learn to survive without the dubious protection of rich men; and a little boy, Billy Chung, enters a world of trouble after stealing valuable Soylent steaks.

Make Room! Make Room! sometimes chooses polemic over plot, a common error in books with Something Important To Say. He’s also not terribly inventive with his characters’ names and speech so they sound dated. There’s no way Harrison could have predicted how Americans would talk in 1999, but he could have guessed they wouldn’t discuss ‘stool pigeons’.

Still, what an achievement this novel is! I can really smell and feel the sweat of millions of jostling bodies, the despair at being turned away empty-handed from the communal water tap, and even the triumph of the character who spies a nice, juicy, edible…rat!

Science fiction does love a dystopia, not least since utopian futures would make lousy reading (“Wow, the future turned out super-fun, hey? Well, that’s all for now. Byeee!”) [TW: Hey! That’s my novel!]

What’s refreshing about Make Room! Make Room! is that Harrison’s dystopia is not, like so many others, ruled by technology. The police state is not watching you. The police equipment is from the 1970s and they can’t even clear the most obvious murders. Humans didn’t create any technology that then turned on us and tried to destroy us. We didn’t discover other worlds and colonise them. People communicate by messenger boy, barges are powered by people pulling ropes, and cars serve no purpose except to house the homeless.

If you can handle a plausible if frightening future in these times, then I recommend this book. If you have a really strong stomach (not only for the plot twist but for Charlton Heston) see the movie Soylent Green. The movie changed quite a few things from the novel, such as the year (2022) and a major plot point. Like Make Room! Make Room!, the movie is a classic. Invite your friends to come over and watch it with you. Maybe skip the popcorn.

Carolyn Ride is a writer, editor and often simply referred to as “the book lady on the radio”. 

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