Struggling in vain to make a meaningful connection with his preoccupied family members and friends, Maxwell Sim quits his job to make a promotional sales delivery to the remote Shetland Islands, a car journey that forces him to confront events from his past.
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It takes real panache to write with such comedic ease; his pacing throughout is superb and delivers realististic dialogue, and, hence believable charcters... Coe's sympathy for his creation is contagious (Robert Epstein Indpendent on Sunday)
Max is silly but he makes him more than a figure of ridicule. Instead, he understands him, shows us what it is to be ineloquent in company, to have bland tastes and a childlike need fot sameness, to not be very good at things. Through that understanding he gives us witty and tender humanity, and reminds us that while winners write the history, it is life's losers, such as Max, who have the best stories (Simon Baker Spectator)
Coe takes a risk in using the nerdish Sim as principal spokesman, but he carries it off by empathy, comedy and a venriloquist's ear for idiom. The conclusion to this fine novel, an ending in which Jonathan Coe himself plays a speaking part, is witty, unexpected and curiously unsettling
(Pamela Norris Literary Review)'Clever, engaging, spring-loaded with mysteries and surprises. Hugely enjoyable' Time Out
'Classic Coe' Vogue
Maxwell Sim could be any of us. He could be you.
He's about to have a mid-life crisis (though he doesn't know it yet). He'll be found in his car in the north of Scotland, half-naked and alone, suffering hypothermia, with a couple of empty whiskey bottles and a boot full of toothbrushes.
It's a far cry from a restaurant in Sydney, where his story starts.
But then Maxwell Sim has, unknowingly, got a long way to go. If he knew now about the toothbrushes, or the dead man on the aeroplane, or his father and the folded photograph, or Poppy the Adultery Facilitator, or even about Emma's lovely, fading voice, then perhaps he'd stay where he was - hiding from his destiny.
But Max knows none of it. And nor do you - at least not yet . . .
'Witty, unexpected and curiously unsettling. Coe carries it off with empathy, comedy and a ventriloquist's ear for idiom' Literary Review
'A satirical tour de force that brilliantly captures the spirit of our age.' Red
'Masterly, highly engaging. Coe's eye for the details of contemporary life remains as sharp as ever' Daily Mail
'Exceptionally moving' Guardian
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