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A brilliantly observed story of crises and reconciliations within
families and stepfamilies and the conflict between Millennials and
their Baby Boomer parents. Funny, dark, yet limned with hope, Tim
Lott returns to a family saga - and social commentary - that began
with the award-winning White City Blue, continuing with When We
Were Rich. It is a story for everyone trying to make sense of a
sharply polarised world where the political has become personal and
the personal has become a minefield. Brighton, December 2019: a
teenage girl is on an early morning run along the seafront. In her
mind she is running away from something she hates, towards
something she fears. China's home is with her mother Veronica, her
pompous stepfather Silas and his dysfunctional son Mason. Her
father, Frankie, is in London, but they have little contact, his
entrenched views a provocation to her socially conscious ideals,
his Brexit-supporting girlfriend a jealous rival. Exhausted by
family tensions, when China leaves Brighton, her godfather Nodge,
Frankie's best friend, and his husband Owen are her first port of
call. But they, too, are beset by domestic conflict. Which leaves
only her father to takes her in. They argue, they spar, the fault
lines between them grow wider - and then coronavirus strikes.
Praise for When We Were Rich 'A sharp and very funny portrait of a
brash era which is also a surprisingly tender take on flawed
masculinity' Sarah Hughes, i paper 'What a terrific novel -
wickedly sharp, wildly entertaining - I was gripped from start to
finish. With its twisty plots and interwoven characters it paints a
vivid portrait of a crucial decade. It's laugh-out-loud funny, too.
And with property porn thrown in, what's not to like' Deborah
Moggach 'Wickedly funny and deeply humane. I loved this book' Sadie
Jones 'Tim Lott revisits the years between millennium fever and the
financial crisis, and brings this already long-lost era back to
life in a novel every bit as evocative and compelling as we would
expect from this prodigiously gifted author' Jonathan Coe 'Lott
delivers many hilarious and sad scenes of life in a long-term
relationship. He also explores the poignancy and fragility of male
friendships, in a manner reminiscent of Graham Swift's Last Orders.
. . [He is,] crucially, careful to linger over moral difficulty and
vulnerability rather than evading it' TLS 'Lott's carefully
observed period piece captures the mood of an era that now seems
like a lost world' Daily Mail
Winner of the 1999 Whitbread First Novel Award 'Beautiful and
brilliant' Tony Parsons Estate agent Frankie Blue is known on his
home turf - White City, Shepherd's Bush - as 'Frank the Fib'. He's
a liar - but one who always tries to tell the truth. Frankie has
been friends with Diamond Tony, a hairdresser, Colin, a computer
nerd, and Nodge, a cabbie, since schooldays. Now they are thirty
and trying to live the same life as they did then - drinking,
girls, banter, football. Then comes Frankie's Great Betrayal -
Veronica, and marriage, his ticket to a bigger, better grown-up
world. From the moment he tells his mates, the whole patchwork of
their friendships begins to collapse - revealing the sad, shocking
but often hilarious truths that lie underneath. 'Caustically funny
and sometimes very affecting ... with sardonic wit and a kind of
tough tenderness, Lott portrays people growing up, growing apart or
growing together' Sunday Times 'Mordantly funny ... Observations
are vivid, the dialogue crisp and, crucially, the characters are
sympathetic' Tatler
The brilliant new novel from the author of The Last Summer of the
Water Strider 'A sharp and very funny portrait of a brash era which
is also a surprisingly tender take on flawed masculinity.' Sarah
Hughes, i paper 'What a terrific novel - wickedly sharp, wildly
entertaining - I was gripped from start to finish. With its twisty
plots and interwoven characters it paints a vivid portrait of a
crucial decade. It's laugh-out-loud funny, too. And with property
porn thrown in, what's not to like' Deborah Moggach Millennium Eve
and six people gather on a London rooftop. Recently married,
Frankie Blue watches with his wife, Veronica, as the sky above the
Thames explodes into a kaleidoscope of light. His childhood
companion, Colin, ineptly flirts with Roxy, an unlikely first date,
while another old friend, Nodge, newly 'out', hides his
insecurities from his waspish boyfriend. New Labour are at their
zenith. The economy booms, awash with cheap credit. The arrival of
the smartphone heralds the sudden and vast expansion of social
media. Mass immigration from Eastern Europe leave many unsettled
while religious extremism threatens violent conflict. An estate
agent in a property boom, Frankie is focused simply on getting
rich. But can he survive the coming crash? And what will become of
his friends - and his marriage - as they are scoured by the winds
of change? When We Were Rich finds the characters introduced in Tim
Lott's award-winning 1999 debut, White City Blue, struggling to
make sense of a new era. Sad, shocking and often hilarious, it is
an acutely observed novel of all our lives, set during what was for
some a golden time - and for others a nightmare, from which we are
yet to wake up. 'Wickedly funny and deeply humane. I loved this
book' Sadie Jones 'Tim Lott revisits the years between millennium
fever and the financial crisis, and brings this already long-lost
era back to life in a novel every bit as evocative and compelling
as we would expect from this prodigiously gifted author' Jonathan
Coe Praise for The Last Summer of the Water Strider: 'I was very
moved by The Last Summer of the Water Strider, which is both
exquisitely specific to time and place and universal in its
examination of humanity, grief and the bizarre prisons that people
build for themselves - and one another. Funny, fascinating,
mysterious and provocative' Sadie Jones, author of The Outcast
'Great storytelling and superb characterisation. Very few writers
can evoke quintessential Englishness in its myriad forms like Tim
Lott. I loved it' Irvine Welsh 'Lott is excellent when it comes to
the psychology of a grieving adolescent' Observer
The brilliant new novel from the author of The Last Summer of the
Water Strider 'A sharp and very funny portrait of a brash era which
is also a surprisingly tender take on flawed masculinity.' Sarah
Hughes, i paper 'What a terrific novel - wickedly sharp, wildly
entertaining - I was gripped from start to finish. With its twisty
plots and interwoven characters it paints a vivid portrait of a
crucial decade. It's laugh-out-loud funny, too. And with property
porn thrown in, what's not to like' Deborah Moggach Millennium Eve
and six people gather on a London rooftop. Recently married,
Frankie Blue watches with his wife, Veronica, as the sky above the
Thames explodes into a kaleidoscope of light. His childhood
companion, Colin, ineptly flirts with Roxy, an unlikely first date,
while another old friend, Nodge, newly 'out', hides his
insecurities from his waspish boyfriend. New Labour are at their
zenith. The economy booms, awash with cheap credit. The arrival of
the smartphone heralds the sudden and vast expansion of social
media. Mass immigration from Eastern Europe leave many unsettled
while religious extremism threatens violent conflict. An estate
agent in a property boom, Frankie is focused simply on getting
rich. But can he survive the coming crash? And what will become of
his friends - and his marriage - as they are scoured by the winds
of change? When We Were Rich finds the characters introduced in Tim
Lott's award-winning 1999 debut, White City Blue, struggling to
make sense of a new era. Sad, shocking and often hilarious, it is
an acutely observed novel of all our lives, set during what was for
some a golden time - and for others a nightmare, from which we are
yet to wake up. 'Wickedly funny and deeply humane. I loved this
book' Sadie Jones 'Tim Lott revisits the years between millennium
fever and the financial crisis, and brings this already long-lost
era back to life in a novel every bit as evocative and compelling
as we would expect from this prodigiously gifted author' Jonathan
Coe Praise for The Last Summer of the Water Strider: 'I was very
moved by The Last Summer of the Water Strider, which is both
exquisitely specific to time and place and universal in its
examination of humanity, grief and the bizarre prisons that people
build for themselves - and one another. Funny, fascinating,
mysterious and provocative' Sadie Jones, author of The Outcast
'Great storytelling and superb characterisation. Very few writers
can evoke quintessential Englishness in its myriad forms like Tim
Lott. I loved it' Irvine Welsh 'Lott is excellent when it comes to
the psychology of a grieving adolescent' Observer
At the heart of writing - at the apex of storytelling - there is
only one principle, and it winds like a golden thread across all
the books and courses. But it gets lost in the ever-spreading
panoply of detail that the creative writing industry relies on to
keep its wheels turning. This book pulls out that thread, polishes
it and reveals the way it penetrates storytelling. It will be
invaluable to anyone creating fictional worlds - but most
particularly to novelists, who are most in danger of forgetting it.
Or not noticing it in the first place. Tim Lott knows he can't
teach anyone to write a novel (that's one of the lies propagated by
the novel-writing industry). But he can teach someone how to build
a firm platform on which they can stand in order to explore whether
they have the talent, will and determination that writing a novel
takes.
"Does God Make Radiators? and Other Questions from the Front Line
of Fatherhood' is a collection of columns published in the Guardian
since April 2012. Covering issues varying as widely as birthday
parties, bereavements, the secrets of a happy marriage, guilt,
children's toys, adultery and cats, it is a primer for the modern
puzzled parent. Witty, honest and controversial, Lott's take on
fatherhood is the ideal antidote to 'perfect parenting' handbooks.
Tim Lott's parents, Jack and Jean, met at the Empire Snooker Hall,
Ealing, in 1951, in a world that to him now seems 'as strange as
China'. In this extraordinarily moving exploration of his parents'
lives, his mother's inexplicable suicide in her late fifties and
his own bouts of depression, Tim Lott conjures up the pebble-dashed
home of his childhood and the rapidly changing landscape of postwar
suburban England. It is a story of grief, loss and dislocation, yet
also of the power of memory and the bonds of family love.
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