Four teenage boys, friends and schoolmates, deal with the hopes, dreams, traumas, and challenges of adolescence as they come of age in industrial Birmingham, a British city that is confronting its own economic crisis, during the upheaval and change of the 1970s. 12,500 first printing.
Reflective and compelling, satirical and tender, wildly imaginative and painstakingly realistic. Chris Lehmann,
The Washington Post Book World
The gritty, cross-pond equivalent to
Look Homeward, Angel. . . . The pangs of embarrassment, the anguish of uncertainty, the awkwardness of success [are] vividly present here. Mike Francis,
The Oregonian
Funny and astute . . . The strength of
The Rotters Club lies in its comic humanity. Stephen Amidon,
The Atlantic Monthly
Please, God . . . if there s a next life, let me write as well as Jonathan Coe.
The Rotters Club offers a thick slice of seventies Birmingham sharp, acerbic, and menacingly true; a sad, funny, thoroughly engaging look at compromise, complicity, and change in a decade many of us would choose to forget. Anthony Bourdain, author of
Kitchen Confidential and
A Cook s Tour
Its tinder-dry combustion of comic, indignant and elegiac suggests an Evelyn Waugh of the left. Richard Eder,
The New York Times Book Review
A thrillingly traitorous work. It hums along for a hundred pages of wise comedy about teenage love s mortifications, then cold cocks us with an honest surprise as cruel as it is earned. David Kipen,
San Francisco Chronicle Jonathan Coe is a mesmerizing writer. . . .
The Rotters Club is a wonderfully gripping novel, by turns funny, heartbreaking and terrifying.
The Seattle Times
The novel s many intricate parts manage to mesh and turn with the startling harmony you find in Robert Altman s movies. Todd Pruzan,
The Village Voice
If there s a contemporary novelist who combines sharp and sometimes savage social commentary with the classic, full-blooded pleasures novels are supposed to give readers as well as Jonathan Coe does, I must have missed him. Charles Taylor, Salon.com
and from the UK . . .
A must-read for anyone who cares about contemporary literature. Katie Owen,
The Telegraph
Filled with characters whose destinies we care about, whose welfare moves us. This is the simplest but highest calling of literature. William Sutcliffe,
The Independent on Sunday As always with Jonathan Coe, the sheer intelligent good nature that suffuses his work makes it a pleasure to read. Peter Bradshaw,
The Guardian
As a study of adolescence, it is hard to beat. The aching naivety and intensity of the main characters made me think of Salinger. John de Falbe,
The Spectator Coe handles his complex approach to a complex era effortlessly, and the end product is a compulsive and gripping read. Paul Connolly,
The Times At once uproariously entertaining and deadly serious a comedy of manners and mores, but also a conscientious and politically charged reminder of an age quite easily forgotten, yet not far removed from our own. Henry Hitchings,
Times Literary Supplement Like all of Coe s novels,
The Rotters Club is brilliant, funny, apposite, informed and unflaggingly truth-seeking. Rachel Cusk,
The Evening Standard
Superior entertainment. The pages seem to turn themselves. Hugo Barnacle,
The New Statesman"
"Reflective and compelling, satirical and tender, wildly imaginative and painstakingly realistic." -Chris Lehmann,
The Washington Post Book World "The gritty, cross-pond equivalent to
Look Homeward, Angel. . . . The pangs of embarrassment, the anguish of uncertainty, the awkwardness of success [are] vividly present here." - Mike Francis,
The Oregonian "Funny and astute . . . The strength of
The Rotters' Club lies in its comic humanity." - Stephen Amidon,
The Atlantic Monthly
"Please, God . . . if there's a next life, let me write as well as Jonathan Coe.
The Rotters' Club offers a thick slice of seventies Birmingham-sharp, acerbic, and menacingly true; a sad, funny, thoroughly engaging look at compromise, complicity, and change in a decade many of us would choose to forget." -Anthony Bourdain, author of
Kitchen Confidential and
A Cook's Tour "Its tinder-dry combustion of comic, indignant and elegiac suggests an Evelyn Waugh of the left." -Richard Eder,
The New York Times Book Review
"A thrillingly traitorous work. It hums along for a hundred pages of wise comedy about teenage love's mortifications, then cold cocks us with an honest surprise as cruel as it is earned." -David Kipen,
San Francisco Chronicle "Jonathan Coe is a mesmerizing writer. . . .
The Rotters' Club is a wonderfully gripping novel, by turns funny, heartbreaking and terrifying." -
The Seattle Times
"The novel's many intricate parts manage to mesh and turn with the startling harmony you find in Robert Altman's movies." -Todd Pruzan,
The Village Voice
"If there's a contemporary novelist who combines sharp and sometimes savage social commentary with the classic, full-blooded pleasures novels are supposed to give readers as well as Jonathan Coe does, I must have missed him." -Charles Taylor, Salon.com
and from the UK . . .
"A must-read for anyone who cares about contemporary literature." -Katie Owen,
The Telegraph "Filled with characters whose destinies we care about, whose welfare moves us. This is the simplest but highest calling of literature." -William Sutcliffe,
The Independent on Sunday "As always with Jonathan Coe, the sheer intelligent good nature that suffuses his work makes it a pleasure to read." -Peter Bradshaw,
The Guardian
"As a study of adolescence, it is hard to beat. The aching naivety and intensity of the main characters made me think of Salinger." -John de Falbe,
The Spectator "Coe handles his complex approach to a complex era effortlessly, and the end product is a compulsive and gripping read." -Paul Connolly,
The Times "At once uproariously entertaining and deadly serious-a comedy of manners and mores, but also a conscientious and politically charged reminder of an age quite easily forgotten, yet not far removed from our own." -Henry Hitchings,
Times Literary Supplement "Like all of Coe's novels,
The Rotters' Club is brilliant, funny, apposite, informed and unflaggingly truth-seeking." -Rachel Cusk,
The Evening Standard "Superior entertainment. The pages seem to turn themselves." -Hugo Barnacle,
The New Statesman
