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It is the 1980s and the Winshaw family are getting richer and crueller by the year. Newspaper-columnist Hilary gets thousands for telling it like it isn't; Henry's turning hospitals into car-parks; Roddy's selling art in return for sex; down on the farm, Dorothy's squeezing every last pound from her livestock; Thomas is making a killing on the stock exchange; and Mark is selling arms to dictators.
But when their hapless biographer, Michael Owen, starts investigating the family's trail of greed, corruption, and immoral doings, the time is ripe for the Winshaws to receive their comeuppance.
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But I don't want to make it sound like a grim sociopolitical tract. At times, it's incredibly funny, and occasionally very touching. It's bookended by World War II and the Gulf War, but its examination of society probes like a laser beam into the minutiae of everyday things that affect us all, like public transport, healthcare, what we eat, how we think. Ultimately, it's a very human novel, superbly constructed and deserving of high praise.
And while I kind of see what previous reviewers mean about it not appealing to Tories or illustrating a class war, I should try to look beyond those issues because this isn't just a book about politics, it's about people - it's about us, and what we have allowed to happen to our society.
With a Dickensian approach to morality and integrity Coe sends up the perverse class system and corrupt establishment that he sees controlling Britain. He is never po-faced, and instead manages to suit the weapon to the danger, and unlike other passionate writers he never over-reacts, which means that the reader will appreciate his points without ever questioning their motives. With elements of Magical Realism as well as clear British canonical influences Coe has quite possibly written the best novel of the last ten years.
I look forward to his next.
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