South of the River

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.