In the Beginning
When Tara Farrier returns to the UK after a long spell as an aid worker in war-torn Yemen, she’s hoping for a well-deserved rest.
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But a cultural battleground has emerged while she’s been away, and she’s unprepared for the sensitivities of her new colleagues at an international thinktank.
A throwaway reference to volcanic activity millions of years ago gets her into hot water and she discovers she belongs to the group reviled by fashionable activists as ‘Young Earth Rejecting Fascists’, or ‘Yerfs’. Faster than she can say ‘Tyrannosaurus Rex’, she is at the centre of a gruelling legal drama.
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In the keenly awaited follow-up to his acclaimed The End of the World is Flat, Simon Edge stabs once again at modern crank beliefs and herd behaviour with stiletto-sharp satire.
‘Completely absurd yet painfully accurate. Brilliantly parodies a fiasco that already seems beyond parody’
Victoria Smith, author of Hags
‘Simon Edge is the wickedest of satirists, and never funnier than when skewering transgender activism and credulity’
Amanda Craig
‘Hilarious, horrifying and deliciously perverse – In the Beginning captures the modern world and shines a bright light at its imperfections’
Christina Dalcher, author of Vox
‘In his nifty satire, Simon Edge has created a fictional popular lunacy – saying that Earth is millions of years old is offensive – to expose exactly how such human madnesses occur’
The Spectator
‘Another richly enjoyable, rapier-sharp lampoon of
cancel culture, witch hunts and the madness of crowds
from the author of The End of the World is Flat’
Saga Magazine
‘Brilliant! Totally gripping, perfectly capturing both the absurdity and horror of this madness. I laughed out loud lots and I got quite emotional – with both anger and joy’
Gareth Roberts, author of Gay Shame
‘Funny, clever, and the retelling of the Maya Forstater case in the most astute and hilarious manner. I loved every line’
Julie Bindel
What [Mr Bryan] wants is that his ideas, his interpretations and beliefs should be made mandatory. When Mr Darrow talks of bigotry he talks of that. Bigotry seeks to make opinions and beliefs mandatory
Chicago Tribune on the Scopes Monkey Trial, 17 July 1925
‘Simon Edge is Britain’s leading exponent of Horatian satire. Yes, he likes his characters, but also sees through them – and us, his readers – with pellucid insight’
Helen Dale
‘A pacy satire [which] perfectly exposes the ludicrous views and hollow values held by the globe’s most educated people’
Jo Bartosch, The Critic
‘A cathartic read for anyone still reeling from the absurdities of the gender wars, or any of the other topics in which self-proclaimed progressives attempt to mandate false beliefs. Highly recommended’
Holly Lawford-Smith