The Precariat. Chris Dunkley

‘I can see this life for exactly what it is. I can now, anyway. We’re walkin’ a knife edge. One slip, one tiny slip an’ we fall. An’ there’s a fuck of a long way to fall…even for us. An’ we’re kept there…on the knife edge…because they can tell yer which way t’go. Forward or down.’Fin’s bright. Some would say gifted. But school isn’t going well. While he is busy coping with his mum’s depression and his younger brother’s drug problem, he can feel his future slipping away. The few jobs that are available in North London are part-time or temporary, and Fin knows his future will be a life of unstable pay, minimal social security benefits, no pension and eroding health care. He is the uture of the emerging major class – living precarious lives at the mercy of the one percent: The Precariat. With his world collapsing slowly around him, Fin finds hope and attraction with the girl at the fried chicken drive-through window. But even she can’t offer him a way out. Fin makes one final desperate bid to take control over the future – by giving his brother the chance to turn his life around…