Nostalgia for Eldritch Nights

Yes, bring back ISIS, post-2008 crushing melancholy, the coalition government, austerity, and for a while, what seemed like our new crushing technocracy. This is the atmosphere in which my first book, Eldritch Nights, was born. Fuck knows what I have nostalgia for this. Maybe because, working in an office now, developing grey hairs, that time was indeed somewhat rosy compared to now. It was, after all, pre-Trump and pre-Brexit. Except it wasn't. Eldritch Nights was 2014-2016, taking in both Brexit and Trump's election. Yet, for a while in 2014, where the novel was basically first-drafted, the book was indeed pre-Trump and pre-Brexit. It was also a very shit time in my life. I just can't romanticise this events. It was, for better or for worse, the "before" times.

I never enjoyed going to the club or, to be honest, getting trashed. I didn't even get that trashed while writing Eldritch Nights. While writing Torn Pages, initially, I got way more trashed. While writing Rosalie's Revenge, I got way more trashed. When I think back to Eldritch Nights, I think about that slick, cold alientating era of David Cameron, Nick Clegg, and Barack Obama. Ice, ice everywhere. Especially in the vodka drinks at the club.

It's atmosphere, god bless it, which makes Eldritch Nights unlike anything else I've ever written. For better or for worse, Eldritch Nights feels like nothing else I've ever written. Nothing else is set in the club. Nothing else got that much time spent on it.