[Kindle] Middle England: Winner of the Costa Novel Award 2019

Product Description

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 is trying to help his aged father navigate a Britain that seems to have forgotten he exists, whilst 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

Review

THE BOOK EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT - The Times

From post-industrial Birmingham to the London riots and the current political gridlock, [Middle England] takes in family, literature and love in a comedy for our times - Guardian

Coe is an extraordinarily deft plotter...the book zips along...he tackles big ambitious themes, in this case the effect of politics on people's lives, and political opinions on personal relations - Mail on Sunday

In Middle England, Coe shows an understanding of this country that goes beyond what most cabinet ministers can muster . . . he subtly builds a picture that exposes the cracks in society . . . he is a master of satire but pokes fun subtly, without ever being cruel, biting or blatant . . . his light, funny writing makes you feel better - Evening Standard

Middle England is a full-blooded state of the nation novel, and it brings us bang up-to-date - Sunday Times

Slick . . . stylishly engineered . . . you marvel at the extraordinary attention to detail - Spectator

What is striking about Coe is not so much his flight from Enghlishness as his ambivalent embrace of it - Financial Times

An astute, enlightened and enlightening journey into the heart of our current national identity crisis. Both moving and funny. As we'd expect from Coe

The first great Brexit novel

Let me add to the chorus of praise forJonathan Coe's new book Middle England. Easily my favourite of his since What a Carve Up!, which did for Thatcherism what Middle England does for Brexit

Brilliant. Read it too fast, finished it too soon

Coe's comic critique of a divided country dazzles . . . Properly laugh-out-loud funny . . . it is also incisive and brilliant about our divided country and the deep chasms revealed by the vote to leave. Do not miss - The Bookseller

Sublimely good. Funny, tender, human and intelligent ... the state of the (Brexit) nation novel to end them all. Jonathan Coe's best since What a Carve Up!

A copper bottomed masterpiece

Probably the best English novelist of his generation

No modern novelist is better at charting the precariousness of middle-class life - Observer

An angry and exuberant book - Sunday Times on 'Number 11'

Jonathan Coe has established himself as one of the most entertaining chroniclers of our times - Tatler

From the Inside Flap

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.