Alexandria (Graywolf Press, 408 pages) is a post-apocalyptic tale set a thousand years in the future, following a small band of survivors living in what once was England. The tiny clan inhabits a world where civilization has collapsed, and, not surprisingly, they have rejected technology, instead favoring ancient ways under a primigenial religion. They may be the last human inhabitants of the planet.

 The narrative revolves around the group’s opposition to a transhuman entity known as Alexandria. They were driven from their ancient homeland by the gradual encroachment of this anti-human force, which once spread across the planet as a successor to modern globalization. Now fully transformed into its posthuman form, Alexandria is in its mopping-up phase, tracking down the survivors with the assistance of an emissary known only as K. The novel unfolds as a series of monologues by the five surviving group members, supplemented by K, a loyal field operative for Alexandria who becomes entangled in the drama of the final collapse when he realizes that Alexandria has abandoned him. The surviving tribe’s language is hyper-simplified English, while K’s reports resemble a corporate memo. 

Unfortunately, Alexandria is a mixed bag. Who or what Alexandria is never fully revealed, but whatever it is, it has cosmic horror written all over it. The ambiguous nemesis trope is entirely in line with contemporary reader expectations. The narrative is imbued with prophetic foreboding, the language rising at times to almost Yeats-like doom, and a level of poetry rarely matched by other writers working similar terrain. A phrase that returns as a refrain throughout the story is, “When the swans return, Alexandria will fall.” Simple, yet in the story’s context, it has a compact beauty that seals an atavistic spirit, like a ruined church spire rising from the mist. Several moments like this throughout the novel remind us of the power of Kingsnorth’s prose.

But Alexandria’s writing feels like one still in a prefatory phase. The novel doesn’t come off as persuasively as it might, as convincingly as the first book of the Buckminster trilogy, The Wake. There, Kingsnorth virtually invented a new language, blending old with modern English into a patois as artistically accomplished as in Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange or sections of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. No mean accomplishment. Kingsnorth is at his best when his prose breaks into poetry. The further he moves from poetry, the less compelling he becomes, especially when out from the linguistic brume pops a clunker like, “You speak with forked tongue,” alluding to a snake god named “Sir Pent” (serpent—for real). And there are pages of exposition to lay out how globalization led to a run-away technological frenzy that resolved, finally, in the emergence of the post-human Alexandria. This is not particularly compelling stuff, given the tropes of the post-apocalyptic genre. One feels oneself falling into the hands of a pamphleteer rather than an artist. 

Kingsnorth has clear literary prowess; thus, Alexandria may be the prelude to a more authentic expression. In 2022, Kingsnorth, always a driven, unconventional writer, announced his conversion to Orthodox Christianity. This likely came as a surprise to fellow travelers who inhabited his prior secular framework. The power in his recent writing has shifted from a fictional narrative to a memoir of his spiritual conversion. Two essays, Wild Christianity and The Cross and The Machine, published in the conservative Catholic journal First Things, are heartfelt, straightforward, and moving, yet empathetic enough not to alienate. The reader does not have to accept any religious convictions that underwrite Kingsnorth’s newly-minted mindset to see them as an extension of his reverence for nature, his distrust of “The Machine,” and his moral and monastic impulses. The poetry is still in his soul, like it or not. Wherever Kingsnorth’s path takes him, readers should be alert to this lively, talented literary sensibility, the voice of a prophet in search of a revelation.

-Vic Peterson, author of The Berserkers, 2023