Conor Sneyd, Future Fish – review
Conor Sneyd, Future Fish is an energetic caper about a young man who finds himself caught up in his colleagues’ various hairbrained schemes and conspiracy theories.
The story opens with the protagonist, Mark, arriving in a grim seaside town on the West coast of Ireland to start a new job at cat food manufacturer, WellCat. He is immediately smitten with the dashing, blond receptionist, Kevin, whose friendly and seemingly flirtatious manner lights a spark that is all too quickly extinguished. On meeting his boss, Maeve, he is instructed never to enter the basement, which contains the company’s lab, where they are developing a cat food called Future Fish that will finally overtake their rivals to become the number one brand in Ireland. Then he meets Noelle, who is to be his supervisor and, it turns out, his neighbour. This first part of the story, where the characters are introduced and the main plot points set up, happens quickly and without much fanfare. Sometimes, however, it is too quick: for instance, Kevin is obviously hot and Mark obviously fancies him, it looks as if they are flirting from the outset, which seems to set up a cute love interest storyline, but it dissolves with a revelation from Kevin within a few pages and then peters out into something a lot less interesting.
However, that the cute boys do not have a workplace romance does not blight the landscape too much, since the plot moves on to other, more important, things. Sneyd is quick to get to the point, telling the story with gusto, even if that sometimes means the craft of language is scarified at the expense of narrative economy, so it then tumbles along briskly and organically to reveal three strands of intrigue that occupy the rest of the novel: Kevin comes to think Maeve is possessed and in need of an exorcism; Noelle is part of a group who thinks that WellCat is harbouring an alien in its basement; and a group of animal rights activists is intent on liberating the fish they think the company is experimenting on. As these three strands weave together, Mark is increasingly, and largely unwittingly, faced with a series of dilemmas that force him to question his loyalties to his friends and his job.
The three stands here are funny, in both the sense of being amusing and unserious, which is one of the novel’s strengths – it is a comedy, pure and simple, so if you want a deep dive into animal rights activism and conspiracy theories, this is not the novel for you. But if you are in the market for a laugh out loud story of misadventure and misguided morals, then you will not do better than Future Fish.
Overall, it is a character-driven novel, so a great deal of the exposition happens through dialogue, which occasionally feels clunky, but which mostly serves to keep the pace up and embeds the characters’ voices in your head. One of the highlights in this respect is an exceptionally attractive American dude that Mark meets on Grindr – which, unsurprisingly, offers slim pickings in a small town – who seems to be a miracle. After all, a good looking, well-adjusted foreigner in a small Irish town who also happens to be gay seems too good to be true, and of course it is, and that becomes the lynchpin of the story in a surprising twist away from the dashing receptionist.
Sneyd’s writing has an intoxicating youthfulness about it, which comes across in the way it leaps and bounds from one moment to the next, as well as in the easy-going, free-flowing style of the prose. It is refreshing to read a novel that is not about ideas or concepts or ideologies, but is instead about good old-fashioned storytelling, and one which neither takes itself too seriously nor asks the reader to. Some might see the story as far-fetched, such as when the gang of ill-equipped misfits tries to break into the lab by crawling through the air vents and ends up in a predicament of Hollywood proportions. But that is what is great about it – it is far-fetched because it is a story, written for entertainment, and at that it amply succeeds.
Future Fish by Conor Sneyd, ISBN: 9781785633515, is published on 09 March 2023 by Lightning books. Paperback, £9.99.
More reviews of this year’s best queer books here.