Middle England: The hilarious Costa Novel award-winning satire novel (The Rotters' Club, 3) - Softcover

Coe, Jonathan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241983681 ISBN 13: 9780241983683

Publisher: Penguin, 2019

Synopsis

WINNER OF THE THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2019

'The book everyone is talking about' The Times

'A comedy for our times' Guardian
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The country is changing and, up and down the land, cracks are appearing - within families and between generations. In the Midlands Benjamin Trotter tries to help his aged father navigate a Britain that seems to have forgotten he exists, while in London his friend Doug doesn't understand why his teenage daughter is eternally enraged. Meanwhile, newlyweds Sophie and Ian can find nothing to agree on except the fact that their marriage is on the rocks . . .

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'Coe's back with a bang. Middle England is the novel about Brexit we need' Daily Telegraph

'A pertinent, entertaining study of a nation in crisis' Financial Times, Books of the Year

'Very funny. Coe - a writer of uncommon decency - reminds us that the way out of this mess is through moderation, through compromise, through that age-old English ability to laugh at ourselves' Observer

About this title

About the Author

Jonathan Coe was born a few miles from Bournville in 1961. The author of political satires such as Bournville, What a Carve Up! and Number 11, and family sagas such as The Rotters' Club and The Rain Before It Falls, his novels have won prizes at home and abroad, including Costa Novel of the Year and the Prix du Livre Européen (both for Middle England).

From the Back Cover

'THE BOOK EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT' THE TIMES



'It was tempting to think, at times like this, that some bizarre hysteria had gripped the British people'



Beginning eight years ago on the outskirts of Birmingham, where car factories have been replaced by Poundland, and London, where frenzied riots give way to Olympic fever, Middle England follows a brilliantly vivid cast of characters through a time of immense change.



There are newlyweds Ian and Sophie, who disagree about the future of the country and, possibly, the future of their relationship; Doug, the political commentator who writes impassioned columns about austerity from his Chelsea townhouse, and his radical teenage daughter who will stop at nothing in her quest for social justice; Benjamin Trotter, who embarks on an apparently doomed new career in middle age, and his father Colin, whose last wish is to vote in the European referendum. And within all these lives is the story of modern England: a story of nostalgia and delusion; of bewilderment and barely-suppressed rage.



Following in the footsteps of The Rotters' Club and The Closed Circle, Jonathan Coe's new novel is the novel for our strange new times.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0241983681
• ISBN 13: 9780241983683
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432