Author:Blake Morrison
It opens on the 'new dawn' of Labour's election victory in 1997, and ends five years later. But this is not so much 'state of the nation' as state of our souls, marriages, families, hopes and careers - a sharp and sexy portrait of a dysfunctional group of characters, all different yet connected.
There's Nat, failed dramatist and reluctant lecturer, falling for a younger woman; Anthea, an eco-friendly lost soul obesessed with foxes; Libby, hardworking mother and advertising executive; Harry, Nat's friend and ex-pupil, a journalist on a local paper, with a guilty secret of his own; and Jack, Nat's unexpectedly poignant uncle, who lives for fox-hunting.
Intimate and disconcerting, compelling and comic, an anatomy of the way things are, South of the River is the big British novel for our times - and a tour de force.
Brilliantly written, horribly truthful, utterly absorbing
—— Kate Saunders , The TimesMorrison anatomises our times and achieves that rare thing: the creation of something substantial and important in fiction out of history as it unfolds in the here and now. His filleting of the new Labour zeitgeist is so ruthless and precise that one is torn between hilarity and despondency
—— Neel Mukherjee , The TimesOften very funny, constantly vigorous, constantly intelligent, constantly enjoyable
—— Evening StandardAn ambitious stab at a state-of-the-nation novel pitched somewhere between Jonathan Coe and Franzen
—— Time OutIntimate and epic, compulsively readable
—— Tony ParsonsA big, ambitious book...carefully structured, intelligently developed
—— Andrew Holgate , Sunday TimesThis is Morrison breaking free: being populist and literary, simultaneously, and showing in the process that he can do something entirely different
—— Peter Stanford , IndependentA satisfying chunky novel set mainly during New Labour's first government
—— Ludovic Huntley-Tilney , Financial TimesAn enthralling novel of the way we live now in Blair's Britain... a marvellous account-taking of our hopes, lifestyles careers and even souls in an age where communication has never been easier, but to find someone who'll listen has never been harder
—— Roger Perkins , Sunday TelegraphAn accessible romp, ripe for the summer market
—— ObserverA scintillating read
—— GQA work that is often very funny, constantly vigorous, always intelligent and enjoyable
—— ScotsmanSublime comic genius
—— Ben EltonA triumph
—— HelloTop marks. Fantastic
—— HeatLovely
—— Daily TelegraphMoving and intelligent
—— IndependentMagnetic, unpretentious and bursting with one-liners
—— CosmopolitanJewell's readability and emotional intelligence make her the cream of pop fiction
—— GlamourFans of chick-lit will understand when I say that this is a book you simply disappear into
—— Sunday Telegraph
zpostcode
Recruit
weather
mreligion
Yellowpages
sport
constellation
shopping
name
game
directory
literature
Word
tour
furnish
Lottery
tftnews
lyrics
News
digital
car
dir
Edu
Finance
