To the extent that Jonathan Coe can be pigeonholed as a satirical novelist, he chiefly satirises things within his frame of personal reference: post-Thatcher politicking, the literary world, British mundanity. Bournville is both a step outside of that comfort zone, and not. It’s a 75-year family saga with no clear protagonists, but a temporal anchor in the form of Mary, who experiences the end of World War II aged 11 and the early months of COVID as a frail 86-year-old.
Characters move around a lot in the interim – we begin with the pandemic nearly stranding Mary’s granddaughter Lorna in mainland Europe – but Bournville, a temperate Birmingham suburb familiar to Coe, is a consistent recourse. Most often, it’s blood that maintains the links which fuel the plot, yet the author relishes the opportunity for the odd cosmically coincidental reunion between people after decades apart (as well as a couple of callbacks to previous Coe novels).
Bournville’s seven chapters each occur on or around a notable date in British history. The earlier ones, which Coe was too young or unborn to document from memory – VE Day, Elizabeth II’s coronation, England’s World Cup win – feel drier in tone, more observational than satirical. Later on, you sense Coe is in his element, with Diana’s wedding and funeral each a battleground for family feuds and occasionally reductive caricatures of kneejerk jingoists. Yet there is still breathing space for tender moments amidst the novel’s smart structure.
Bournville, Jonathan Coe (Viking)
Price: £20. Info: here
words NOEL GARDNER
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