The Wall by John Lanchester

The book is set in Britain in the not-too-distant dystopian future. There is no more freedom of movement, or freedoms of any sort. Ever since a climatic event known as the Change, movement between countries is outlawed. There isn’t a single beach left anywhere in the world. Britain’s coastline has been obliterated by a National Coastal Defense Structure, known to everyone who serves on it as the Wall. It is the embodiment of what Trump saw as his legacy along the US southern border, but extrapolated throughout what is left of humankind. Every British youngster is conscripted to spend two years of their life as a Defender, patrolling 10,000km of concrete walkways looking for Others who might appear at any moment from the sea. Life on the Wall is cold. It is boring. It is utterly grim. Kavanaugh, our hero, is a rookie Defender from the Midlands who manages to find countless amusing ways to describe his dark, unforgiving stretch of the Wall in north Devon. Then he, along with his breeding companion, are exiled, cast out to fend for themselves. The story is an amalgamation of anxieties about rising sea levels, anti-refugee populism, and post-Brexit isolation and scarcity, mixed with insight, and leaving you with something to think about.