People have friends! Even I have friends! Make Room! Make Room!’s two main characters begin with one sort of friend for him* and none for her. (Check the last three novels you read.) I think this is because it would make the story too complicated and annoying for the author & would get in the way of the action.

My latest literary insight is that in most novels, especially thrillerish ones, the protagonist has no friends. Willynilly is another of my favourite words. My own favourite word is GALLIMAUFRY but you don’t see me shoehorning it into every review willynilly. If you had a shot of vodka each time he uses the word CHUNK you’d be dead of severe alcoholic poisoning before page 90. This humble word is Harry Harrison’s absolute favourite. You wouldn’t want to even visit it for ten minutes. You wouldn’t want to live in this version of New York City. But pretty much everything is now scarce because Americans in the 30 years between 19 ate everything and used up everything whilst all having ten kids who then had another ten kids each, it seems. There are meateasies! This is because you can get your meat but you have to know where. The whole damn country has kind of collapsed.

It’s New York City and the population has skyrocketed to 35 million. The main guy who is a cop gets to be really happy for about two pages and after that it’s back to worrying about absolutely everything. Here is a 1966 novel about 1999 which is good, honest, miserable fun.

Make room make room book