Two Tribes

Mary Roberts, a historian in the 23rd century, recreates the life of her distant ancestor Harry Roberts in 2016, based on the extensive diaries he kept at the time. Harry is an architect, born to a professional middle-class family. All his friends are staunch remainders, up in arms about the outcome of the recent referendum. When his car breaks down outside a small town in Norfolk, he meets Michelle. Michelle is a hairdresser, a woman who could not be more different to him, both in terms of lifestyle and background. Like most people she knows, she voted leave. Drawn to each other both in spite of and because of their differences, the two begin a relationship which will change the course of their lives irrevocably. Writing in a bleaker future, from which the political arguments of the twenty-first century seem very remote, Harry's descendant Mary turns this personal story into a reflection on class, and the way that different groups of human beings construct and adapt stories to help them feel at home in the world.