Disnaeland

What if the end of the world is the best thing that’s never happened to us? Disnaeland is a heartbreaking wonder of a book that tells of a community building a new world in the ruins of the old.

In the central Scottish town of Dundule, residents of the Busy Bee Flats – Donna and her eight-year old daughter, dour ex-miner Douglas, big Giorgio the chip shop fryer, young Tam and Mac in their drug dreams – struggle like everyone else. Then the lights go out. Winter, and it’s a global blackout. Now’s the choice. Go wild and raid the streets, or come together.

Mixing tenderness and broad comedy, Disnaeland draws us deep inside a community as it fights to build a new world in the ruins of the old. Starting with the deeply personal, Disnaeland goes on to shift to the visionary.

But there’s no paradise yet. Botched deals, armed survivalists and raids threaten to destroy progress. And the occasional screech of a fighter jet reminds them that the nuclear threat still looms…

‘Unlike most dystopian fiction, this is a uniquely hopeful and uplifting novel. DD Johnston finds hope in the human capacity for love and renewal even after the apocalyptic collapse in the bleakest of places. He shows how the breakdown of one society can open the way for a better one to emerge. An awesome achievement.’ – Rob Newman