Drayton and Mackenzie: Alexander Starritt on How the 2008 Crash Ruined Everything

About this episode

Alexander Starritt discusses how the 2008 financial crisis and the technology revolution have shaped contemporary life and his novel 'Drayton and Mackenzie'.

“To explain the lives of people living in this moment, to look at the historical forces that are shaping all of us, you have to look at business and technology. In our period, what is it that’s shaping us? I would suggest it’s the long fallout from the 2008 financial crisis and the technology revolution that’s been happening in California.” — Alexander Starritt How to write a novel about our times? For Alexander Starritt , it means juxtaposing friendship and ambition alongside the grand historical forces of the age. Just as George Eliot did in Middlemarch . Whereas for Eliot, those forces were the 1832 Reform Acts and the industrial revolution, Starritt’s forces are the 2008 financial crisis and the digital revolution. His novel, Drayton and Mackenzie , longlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year, follows two ambitious Gen X’ers through the first two decades of the twenty-first century. The 2008 crash, Starritt says, ruined the lives of many of his generation. Rather than being in a Gramscian interregnum, our brave new 21st century world is already visible. But in contrast with many progressive critics of our neo-liberalism age, Starritt isn’t apocalyptic about…

People in this episode

Host: Andrew Keen

Guest: Alexander Starritt

Topics covered

• 2008 financial crisis
• technology revolution
• friendship and ambition
• historical forces
• Gen X
• novel writing

Keywords

• 2008 crash
• financial crisis
• digital revolution
• novel
• Gen X
• Middlemarch
• business
• technology

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Financial Times, Schroders

Books & works: Drayton and Mackenzie, Middlemarch

Places: California, 21st century, Gramscian interregnum

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