Jonathan Coe's new novel is set in the 1970s against a distant backdrop of strikes, terrorist attacks and growing racial tension. A group of young friends inherit the editorship of their school magazine and begin to put their own distinctive spin on to events in the wider world. A zestful comedy of personal and social upheaval, The Rotters' Club captures a fateful moment in British politics - the collapse of 'Old Labour' - and imagines its impact on the topsy-turvy world of the bemused teenager: a world in which a lost pair of swimming trunks can be just as devastating as an IRA bomb.
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Amazon Review
At a time when people are looking back on the 1970s with nostalgia, Jonathan What a Carve Up Coe's The Rotters' Club is a timely reminder of quite how ghastly that benighted decade was in Britain. Set in the "industrial" heartland of the West Midlands, it chronicles the growing pains of four Brummie schoolboys--Philip, Sean, Doug and Benjamin--who must not only come to terms with the normal pangs of adolescence but with terrible knitwear, ludicrous pop-music, nightmarish food and insidious racism, all set against the awful, surreal and tragicomic reality of a post-imperial nation.
The book suffers in its programmatic attempts to make the four boys and their families symbolise, or represent, Something Important To Do With British Life. Doug, for instance, symbolises Industrial Decline, via his dad, a shop steward at the doomed British Leyland Longbridge plant. For Sean its Sexual Liberation--at least he's the one that looks most likely to get his rocks off. And young Ben Trotter would appear to represent A Young Jonathan Coe. But if this aspect of the novel seems contrived, then the author's capricious, deft, wryly comedic and touchingly empathetic style keeps things chugging along, as he knits together the troubles and tragedies of some fairly ordinary people living through fairly extraordinary years. --Sean Thomas --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From the Publisher
WHAT THE CRITICS THOUGHT: PRAISE FOR THE ROTTERS' CLUB
'Without a shred of nostalgia, sentimentality or preaching, Coe pins down a fascinating turning point in our history. His real achievement however is that this serious political novel doesn't read like one...The novel is filled with characters whose desitnies we care about, whose welfare moves us. This is the simplest but highest calling of literature. The Rotters' Club is a book to cherish, a book to re-read, a book to buy for all your friends.' - William Sutcliffe in the Independent on Sunday
'Without a shred of nostalgia, sentimentality or preaching, Coe pins down a fascinating turning point in our history. His real achievement however is that this serious political novel doesn't read like one...The novel is filled with characters whose desitnies we care about, whose welfare moves us. This is the simplest but highest calling of literature. The Rotters' Club is a book to cherish, a book to re-read, a book to buy for all your friends.' - William Sutcliffe in the Independent on Sunday
'Coe recreates the period with such loving accuracy that I frankly suspect him of planting a secret microphone in the tin Oxford Mathematical Instruments box that I carried around in my school days...the sheer intelligent good nature that suffuses his book makes it a pleasure to read.' - Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian
'This novel is a cracking evocation of the 1970s...The novel shares the musical eclecticism of the period...it works wonderfully well.' - Will Cohu in the Daily Telegraph
'You laugh, you cry and you're left wondering what happens in the end. Just like real life. You'll love this book.' - Andrea Henry in the Daily Mirror
'A tremendous romp...the social details are described by Coe with an accuracy and love that could make you doubt his sanity but never his brilliance or his sense of humour...a fluid work, where technical skill, wit and exuberant inventiveness combine in making it a joy to read.' - John de Falbe in The Literary Review
'Like all of Coe's novels, The Rotters' Club is brilliant, funny, apposite, informed and unflaggingly truth-seeking... I for one am keenly awaiting the next instalment.' - Rachel Cusk in The Evening Standard
'Like the best of his previous work, The Rotters' Club is 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 in the TLS
'The almost Dickenisan generosity of his imagination is manifest even in a minor charactes such as Paul...an unflinching picture of a troubled decade.' - Phil Baker in the Sunday Times
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Imagine! November the 15th, 1973. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Imagine! November the 15th, 1973. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By Alex Magpie
Format:Paperback
TRC is like the rhyme of the little girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead- when it is good it is very, very good but when it is bad it is horrid! TRC suffers from Coe not only trying to tackle head-on most of the dominant issues of the seventies through a quite ordinary group of characters but dabbles in short story territory (the tale of the Danish Jews) and annoying literary styles (Ben's inner turmoil near the end). Added to this is the sickeningly sweet and unfinished end that pretty well tricks the reader.
At the same time, however, it is perhaps premature to criticise TRC unduly until the sequel has been read with it- perhaps it will create a better sense of closure on the plot lines that are left open. To TRC's rescue Coe's humour in this book is spot on and he makes the most of the bizarre nature of teenage years whilst not skimping on the lows as well as the highs.
Nevertheless, the three or four main characters of the book- that of the boys- seem very similar to each other for the first ten or so chapters and it is easy to get them mixed up in your mind. If Coe had concentrated more on developing them earlier on it would have been far more entertaining to catch their antics earlier on than constantly having to flick back to see who's who. It is also badly managed to make Ben the main character near the end of the book- it lends the question- what about the others?
TRC suffers from an annoying future pro and epilogue that adds little to the ambience and story line and takes away the sense of placement that the focus on the seventies throughout the rest of the novel tries to create.
The worst aspect of the book though has got to be the character of Cicely and the whole relationship between her and Ben.... Read more ›
At the same time, however, it is perhaps premature to criticise TRC unduly until the sequel has been read with it- perhaps it will create a better sense of closure on the plot lines that are left open. To TRC's rescue Coe's humour in this book is spot on and he makes the most of the bizarre nature of teenage years whilst not skimping on the lows as well as the highs.
Nevertheless, the three or four main characters of the book- that of the boys- seem very similar to each other for the first ten or so chapters and it is easy to get them mixed up in your mind. If Coe had concentrated more on developing them earlier on it would have been far more entertaining to catch their antics earlier on than constantly having to flick back to see who's who. It is also badly managed to make Ben the main character near the end of the book- it lends the question- what about the others?
TRC suffers from an annoying future pro and epilogue that adds little to the ambience and story line and takes away the sense of placement that the focus on the seventies throughout the rest of the novel tries to create.
The worst aspect of the book though has got to be the character of Cicely and the whole relationship between her and Ben.... Read more ›
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I enjoyed this book enormously. I suppose the world it describes - Britain in the mid 1970s - will be about as remote as that of Jane Austen to anyone under the age of thirty - but it captures my memories of the era perfectly.
Some reviewers have queried the handling of the political content, but personally I thought it was integrated well with the rest of the book.
Overall - an excellent attempt to capture the feeling of what it was like to be adolescent.
Most reviewers have either ignored the references to music of the period or just followed the usual cliches - "70s, era of flares, lava lamps and ludicrous music," etc. etc. I thought that Jonathan Coe dealt much more carefully with the music of the time - poking fun at Yes, enjoying The Clash, but quite happy to accept that, like most musical forms, Progressive Rock had plenty of good as well as bad.
Above all, it is clear that he has a great and lasting affection for the music of Hatfield & The North, whose second album gave the book its title. it would be nice if one result of this book's success was to make a few more people discover the Hatfield's music, whose merit was neglected even in the 1970s! Anyone who likes the music will certainly enjoy the book. I can't guarantee that anyone who liked the book will enjoy the music, but why not give it a try.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In this novel of enormous reach, Coe attempts to give epic significance to the 1970's in Birmingham, England. Abandoning the extremely tight, limited focus he employed in The House of Sleep, Coe here employs a huge cast of characters, eight or ten of them teenagers (somewhat difficult to keep track of because they are not yet fully formed or unique), along with their parents and their parents' lovers, their brothers and sisters and the brothers' and sisters' lovers, and their teachers and some of their lovers.
Starting with a meeting in 2003 between the adult children of some of the characters from the 1970's, the novel switches back and forth in time through several different points of view, offering insights about what has happened in the interim. The teenagers' lives are depicted in minute detail as they work on school magazines, collect new rock albums, create their own bands, score with girlfriends, and do all the superficial things teenagers do the world over, told from the well-developed, if not particularly compelling, perspective of the '70's.
Coe can be very funny, and his view of teenage life is often amusing, but the teenagers also reveal their intolerance of differences, their casual cruelty, doubts about religion, ignorance of the political system, and general insulation from the forces which are shaping their world. Their parents' lives are completely separate from their children's, dealing with union vs. management issues, Labour vs. Tory political goals, a stagnant economy, resentment over immigration, IRA activity, some anti-semitism, and a belief that their dreams probably will not come true. These huge and important themes seem a bit jarring when juxtaposed against the superficial, day-to-day activities of the teenagers who are the main characters.
... Read more ›3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Like the other reviewers (and as a huge Coe fan) I was disappointed by his latest. He does indeed manage to get under the skin of Birmingham in the mid to late 70's. The area where Ben and his friends live is somewhere I used to visit frequently when I was their age and much of his description resonated with my own memories.
Being about the same age as Coe, I knew what was going to happen when Lois and Malcolm planned their night out to the Tavern in the Town. What was curious was that he failed to convey the subsequent horror and outrage that spread across the city for months afterwards. Ben's family seemed to be entirely unaffected by the episode, taking off to Denmark for a family holiday without any mention of poor Lois.
So many of the plot-lines disappear altogether when they could have been developed into some really interesting themes (e.g. when Cicely's uncle expresses his hatred of the English and admiration for the IRA, Ben simply says "It's a point of view" and that is the end of the matter.)
One of the delightful features of Coe's writing is that he uses magnificently inventive devices to break up the narrative (such as the wonderfully mixed up review with footnotes in House of Sleep) and he tries to do the same here, but somehow fails to bring it off. The school mag is just a little too polished and obviously authored by a professional writer and the curious decision not to use paragraphs in the final chapter (presumebly in an effort to convey Ben's giddiness) compounded the feeling that he was just galloping towards a conclusion. For the last 15 minutes, I was feeling 'let's just get this thing over with' and that tended to overshadow some of the more enjoyable moments from earlier chapters.
I wasn't aware that there was going to be a sequel.
... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lovely, tender, funny, and nostalgic (could have been my life!)
It's something of a mystery to me how I missed this book for so many years. It was published in 2001 but I didn't get around to reading it until 2013. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Philtrum
3.0 out of 5 stars
Just Falls Short
I really thought I was going to like this book after the first page which made me chuckle. It's 2003 in Berlin. Read more
Published on 21 May 2008 by Mr. Peter Steward
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Very Maws of Doom
"The Rotters' Club" was first published in 2001, and went on to win Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. Read more
Published on 24 Sep 2007 by Craobh Rua
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny and Charming
This was a good nostalgic read, with great characterisation. Funny, moving, very well written - Lois's story was particularly poignant. I would highly recommend this book. Read more
Published on 19 Aug 2007 by gerty guinea
5.0 out of 5 stars
The perfect holiday novel
The Rotters' Club is a charming and ambitious novel which chronicles four adolescent schoolboys growing up in 1970s Birmingham and trying to make sense of their lives. Read more
Published on 23 Oct 2006 by Mr. A. P. Rose
3.0 out of 5 stars
I fail to see what all the fuss is about
This is a fairly undemanding read about which there seems to have been a great deal of fuss. It's a moderately engaging stroll through one boy's adolescence with a background of... Read more
Published on 17 July 2004 by Barton Keyes
4.0 out of 5 stars
A work in progress
Like many reviewers here, I also grew up in Birmingham - Coe and I are also the same age (within a few months). Read more
Published on 6 Jun 2004 by Keith D. Gumery
2.0 out of 5 stars
Where Did Brum Go?
Having only recently escaped to Cornwall to live, I began to read The Rotters club with the optimism of evoking memories of a Birmingham that I had all but forgotten. Read more
Published on 26 May 2004 by LPM
3.0 out of 5 stars
Needs Re-editing
I too,like Coe, went to school in Birmingham and subsequently away to university (albeit in the 50-60s). My father also worked for BMC. Read more
Published on 21 April 2004 by RJ Lane
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truly wonderful story of relationships, tragedy etc.
It appears that many people have read this book as a kind of nostalgic retrospective account of 70s adolescent life. Read more
Published on 12 Feb 2004 by "johnny_is_good"
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