Mark Lawson - The Allegations

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A readable, thought-provoking book

I thought this was a very good book.  It is very readable, Mark Lawson is a very acute observer of modern society and he raises important issues.

The story is of two colleagues in the History Department (now "Directorate") of a fictitious University.  One is accused by the institution of Bullying and Insubordination, while another is investigated by the police because of an historical accusation of rape.  The way in which these two things are handled and their effect on those involved is very well done.  Cleverly, neither character is particularly likeable, and one has behaved very sordidly in the past, which lends the story greater weight.  It is intercut with one character reading the literature of false accusation – Kafka, Böll, Miller and others – and their respective situations are well compared and contrasted with it.

It is hard to say much about the plot itself without giving away more than I would like to have known before starting the book, but the university's investigation into Bullying ("The Process") is wittily but chillingly depicted.  Lawson is especially good on the use of language; complainants being automatically designated as "victims" before any investigation, for example, or the evolution of departmental title from Personnel to Human Resources to People to Workplace Harmony.  This is a world (all too familiar) in which wit, irony, nuance or complexity are utterly unrecognised, and debate or criticism are readily designated as "bullying."  Lawson gets the use of management-speak very acutely in the way in which, like Owell's Newspeak, it is designed to make any dissenting thought (and sometimes any thought at all) impossible – and what happens when an academic institution defines itself as a "business" in pursuit of "customers" who must be satisfied.  The Process is tellingly described by a character from Workplace Harmony as "robust…fit for purpose," but by another academic as "processes as questionable to the humane as they are apparently unquestioned by the mob."  Lawson points out that just as it is unacceptable to dismiss dreadful harassment and genuine bullying as "banter," it is also possible to misuse the term "bullying" to suppress any debate or inconvenient truth-telling.

The plot surrounding the rape allegations is more problematic.  This is bound to provoke dispute and I see that the excellent Roman Clodia , whose views I respect greatly, says in her review that she was made angry by Lawson's approach.  I wasn't – but then I'm acutely aware here that I'm not female.  However, I do think it's legitimate to raise the issue.  Rape is among the vilest and most damaging of crimes, so does widening its definition to such an extent unfairly brand people as rapists, and ultimately weaken the dreadfulness of the crime in the public mind?

I don't mean to turn this into an essay, so I'll stop.  As a novel, I think this is readable, witty in places, very serious in others and raises important issues.  It is perhaps a little over-long, but I still found it engrossing right up to the end and I can recommend it warmly.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)