JOHN LANCHESTER’S LAST NOVEL, Capital, published in 2012, was a Dickensian tour of London in the era of global capital—but before crises of xenophobia and worsening climate change came crashing down. The British journalist and novelist’s latest, The Wall, picks up somewhere in the not-too-distant future, when those crises have peaked: the seas have risen, the world has flooded, and human society has been torn apart. Only one place on earth (much like England, but not necessarily England) remains recognizable, with rolling green hills and pubs.
The story is centered on an everyman named Joseph Kavanagh, who, like all citizens under a certain age, is conscripted to serve as an armed “Defender” on the Wall, a 10,000-km concrete barrier that keeps out the “Others” (cue the raised eyebrows of…
