The Iron Heel: The First Dystopian Novel

When I was a young teen, I devoured Jack London’s The Call of the Wild and White Fang. For a time, as I’m sure is true of many young people, I was fascinated with wolves. Then, I moved on to “bigger” books, wrongly assuming that London was a YA author of sorts. I’m sure both of the aforementioned books could use another read on my part to fully appreciate the deeper themes, especially about nature and domestication, that London was exploring.

When I started my research into dystopias, I assumed that We was the first dystopian novel (more of my history with dystopias: here). What a surprise to learn that not only was the first dystopia published more than 15 years before We, but it was written by Jack London.

Turns out, I didn’t know much about London. I didn’t know about the extremely early death from alcohol, nor did I know about the socialist leanings.

I certainly didn’t know he’d written the first dystopia, kind of like discovering that Twain wrote the extremely dark book, The Mysterious Stranger (but, given the hellscape of loss which was Twain’s personal life, the sentiments in TMS make sense).

Hearing that Jack London wrote what’s considered the first dystopia was akin to hearing something like Robert Frost actually wrote what’s considered the first Beat poetry.

It just doesn’t fit in my mind, but there it is… The Iron Heel with Jack London’s name on the cover.

What a wild ride this book is. It’s really inspired as well as experimental in form. It makes me wonder who London was inspired by (considering one of the best-known—and maybe overrated—dystopias, 1984, was inspired by The Iron Heel… and We… and Brave New World).

The Iron Heel reads, as I’m sure was intended, like history. It’s protagonist is Avis Everhard (another experiment for London as he is writing from a woman’s POV). As we read, we discover that we are reading the Everhard Manuscript. We are told this by a historian of sorts from some 700 years in the future, when the world is more of a Utopia. We also hear from this historian throughout the novel in the form of detailed footnotes, which is both experimental but also a real trick in world-building.

London is essentially creating two histories. The Everhard Manuscript details the early days of the rise of the Iron Heel, an oligarchy that takes power on the heels of capitalism. The “manuscript” (or the novel we are reading, which isn’t a novel but a historical document) details from 1912 to 1918 and the events surrounding Avis’ transformation from privileged daughter of a professor to revolutionary socialist, under the tutelage of her lover and eventual husband, Ernest Everhard.

The document, we learn, is also a fragment. The novel ends abruptly, and our future historian remarks on how fortunate we are that Avis hid it and kept it from being destroyed, but also how unfortunate we are to not get to have her entire tale. We do learn in a footnote that Avis lived to as long as 1932, so it is unclear why she never finished the manuscript. 

The actual story is quite chilling and feels very much possible. To some extent, I have to wonder if members of the current Republican Party wouldn’t have transitioned seamlessly into the Iron Heel (though I don’t want to digress politically--- but, on that note, London did predict groups like Blackwater, calling them The Mercenaries (a force at the disposal of the Iron Heel, which “evolved” out of the old army).

My copy of The Iron Heel is only 176 pages long, but it’s very dense with information and details… so much so that not all modern readers will dig the pacing of the novel. As I said, it reads very much like a historical document, a journal of sorts… but as it very much should (in the same way that Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” reads like journal entries and is supposed to).

Ernest Everhard’s explanations of the folly of capitalism and the need for socialism, during the first 50 pages of the novel, should be required reading.

Even if I’ve made the novel sound like you’ll be reading a dry history, that’s not entirely true. It is also full of rich, visceral moments. At one point, a massacre is described in which Avis and another man must take refuge under… well, you’ll see:

“Then, what he expected, began. The Mercenaries were killing without quarter. At first, the surge back upon us was crushing, but as the killing continued the pressure was eased. The dead and dying went down and made room. Garthwaite put his mouth to my ear and shouted, but in the frightful din I could not catch what he said. He did not wait. He seized me and threw me down. Next he dragged a dying woman over on top of me, and, with much squeezing and shoving, crawled in beside me and partly over me. A mound of dead and dying began to pile up over us, and over this mound, pawing and moaning, crept those that still survived. But these, too, soon ceased, and a semi-silence settled down, broken by groans and sobs and sounds of strangulation.”

Though too, there are moments of humor, such as when Garthwaite tells Avis that she should rest while he gets them some “grub” with grub being followed by footnote 119.

At the bottom of the page, the footnote simply reads 119-“Food.” A fun little moment on London’s part where he decides that people 700 years in the future would not understand the word “grub”.

I found The Iron Heel to be a fascinating read, and I highly recommend it, especially for those interested in dystopias.

Jeff "Van" Vande Zande is an English professor at Delta College in Michigan. In 2022, Montag Press will publish his dystopian novel, Falling Sky. His dystopian novella, Parable of Weeds, is out through Untreed Reads and available: here.