By William Davies
Eve Smith is the author of three speculative thrillers. Her latest novel, ONE, published in 2023, is set in a one-child policy Britain that has been ravaged by climate change. It was longlisted for the 2023 British Science Fiction Association Best Novel award. Her debut, The Waiting Rooms, set during an antibiotic crisis, was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize First Novel Award and selected as a Guardian Book of the Month. Off Target, her second novel, imagines a world where genetic engineering of children has become the norm. It was a Times Book of the Month, who described it as ‘an astute, well-researched and convincing novel of ideas.’ Eve’s books are published by Orenda Books. Her website is www.evesmithauthor.com
Before writing full-time, Eve worked for an environmental charity on research projects across Asia, Africa and the Americas.
This interview developed out of an in-person event held at Ewell Library, UK, in September 2023.
Thanks for your time, Eve. Let’s start with ONE. It’s a chilling speculative thriller that covers many themes, from climate change to women’s rights. How did the novel come about and what was your process for writing it?
The premise for ONE was born out of two ideas. First, what if birth was a crime? How might a one-child policy play out in Britain? Second, how might the climate emergency change the UK, not only in terms of environmental impacts, but also the social and political ramifications? How would it affect how we’re governed and how we treat people?
During my research, I read Shen Yang’s More Than One Child, a powerful memoir about growing up as an illegal excess child in China under their one-child policy. The author had committed a crime just by being born. During China’s one-child policy over half a billion birth control procedures were carried out over more than three decades. Many of those sterilisations and terminations were forced. Given the recent abuses of abortion rights in the US, with Roe vs Wade being overturned, the fact that such a thing could happen today in a Western democracy made me question what else a government in the West might do to curtail reproductive rights.
In ONE, I also wanted to explore how a totalitarian party might take advantage of the climate crisis to secure power. In Europe, several far-right groups have adopted the clothes of an environmental agenda to promote nationalist policies. In my novel, on the surface, the UK appears to be doing pretty well. Through climate tech investment and radical shifts in policy and laws, the country has adapted to cope with many climate change effects. Britain is self-sufficient in food, water and energy. Jobs are plentiful. Healthcare is good. But it has come at a cost: freedom and choice.
ONE includes two epigraphs, one from Yang’s memoir, the other from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. How important were these and other books for you while you were writing the novel?
I always do lots of research for my books, and that includes reading fiction and non-fiction around the subject areas. Shen Yang’s memoir was hugely moving and helped me understand what life was like for an excess child under China’s one-child policy, and how utterly devastating this could be. Her experience informed the character development of my protagonist Kai’s illegal sister, Senka, and many of the scenes in the book were influenced by the real-life horrors that took place in China.
Nineteen Eighty-Four was also a major influence for the development of the totalitarian ONE Party, and their relentless propaganda. Kai is a member of the Ministry for Population and Family Planning and has grown up as a child of the state. Her development through the novel is key, as the lies and false information she has been fed are gradually unmasked, to reveal the inner machinations and horror of the Party machine.
You’ve said in the past that you write about what scares you. Could you talk more about that?
Writing about my fears helps me process them. That is the benefit of writing speculative fiction! I pick issues or developments I have learned about that could have hugely beneficial effects, but, in the wrong hands, or treated in the wrong way, could be utterly disastrous and whose impacts may have been underestimated.
My debut novel, The Waiting Rooms, which was written before the Covid pandemic hit, portrays an antibiotic resistance crisis, which is a very real threat today. By researching the facts and getting under the skin of these fears I can find the hook for my novels, the ‘what-if’ that drives the story. For example, what if we ran out of effective antibiotics, how would that affect us and our loved ones? What might the sacrifices be? In my novel, a law is passed where over-seventies are no longer eligible for the drugs because they have to be rationed, and we see the resulting tragedy unfold from the perspective of my protagonist, 69-year-old Lily.
The ethical and political implications of scientific developments are central aspects of your novels. Are you engaging with scientists and scientific literature while you’re writing?
Absolutely. I am very lucky to have contact with different scientists who I have connected with via friends and networks, who are good enough to give up their time to discuss ideas. They also review the more technical parts of my writing. I believe it’s important to get this detail right, as although this is fiction, the issues I am exploring are real and I want my near-future worlds to feel as plausible as possible. Because that makes them much more terrifying! For example, my second novel, Off Target, portrays a world where genetic engineering of children has become routine. I connected with several geneticists about my initial ideas and their insights were invaluable. Also, I’ve learned that quite a few medics and scientists read speculative fiction, so you need to get your facts right. I do a huge amount of research online, reading articles, some of which I may use, some of which I won’t, but it all helps me shape the world in my novel, and the challenges that my protagonists will face.
It’s fascinating to hear of scientists reading speculative fiction. In a typically understated fashion, Margaret Atwood describes speculative fiction as a genre about what might happen, and the dark potential of science and human ingenuity often plays a central role in these stories. To what extent, though, do you feel you are writing about things that are inevitable? Do you believe that we will be forced to confront a choice between individual freedoms and tackling climate change, for example? Are we already at that point?
I think it is very hard to predict anything for definite. The pace of change is so fast, and world events so unstable, it is hard to know what will happen next month let alone in a decade or more. I write about potential scenarios and let the reader decide whether they believe we are heading that way, or not. It is my job to ask the questions, to paint compelling possibilities and put my characters through the challenges those situations throw up. I like giving them thorny ethical dilemmas and watching which way they jump. As for tackling climate change: that is a very big question that might take an entire interview by itself! What I show in ONE, is how a society that is not a democracy can ruthlessly and efficiently make change happen. In the novel, everyone is monitored and everything is rationed. What you eat and drink, the energy you use, your transport and the things you buy. All of that is tallied against a weekly quota, to ensure emissions and consumption are kept to a minimum. This is the price citizens are willing to pay for keeping the lights on, for knowing there will be food on the table. For staying ‘safe’. The question is, is that price worth paying?
Climate change, personal freedoms, the role of the sciences: these all extend well beyond the world of writing. What role do you think fiction and the arts broadly can play in how we confront these challenges?
I think fiction and the arts have a very important role to play. They can highlight issues or solutions that people may not be aware of. And they can engage people in ideas and dilemmas in a much more meaningful way than facts alone. People connect with stories both rationally and emotionally. If you take someone into a particular world and show them how things play out through a character that they relate to, then they are much more likely to be invested in that story and have a response to the ideas it explores.
You’ve written about fertility, antibiotics, climate change, women’s rights, population control. What’s next?
Well, that would be telling… I am very interested in the science around age reversal.
Exciting! Finally, I think it is fair to say your novels deal with difficult, often quite bleak scenarios. What keeps you hopeful?
We are an inventive, ambitious species. We have learned how to adapt to the most challenging conditions. I believe that most of us do care about one another, and about the place we call home. I live in hope that our inventiveness and our humanity will address the long-term challenges we face. And that our political and financial systems will eventually adapt to support that transition.
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