The Rotters Club by Jonathan Coe

Birmingham in 1973, Doug Anderton, Benjamin Trotter and Philip Chase have them small well organized lives between them King William high school, with their family life, girls’ trouble and concerns of their parents. Doug is the son of a striking leader of the automobile factory, is in love with Claire Newmann, the sister of Miriam who is the secret mistress of his father. Benjamin has sister, Loïs, who begins to build her future life, he has a younger brother too, he is in love with Cicely and writes novels and musics. Philip is serious, is secretly too a lover of Claire and he sees her mother having a relation with his plastic arts teacher and his father, furious to know it, participates, juste like Doug, Ben and Claire in the newspaper of his high school and tries to etablish with Ben his rock band.

Their father work on the automobile factory, speak about social unrest, about strikes and about the terrorism of the IRA while they speak about rock, about punk, about their life to the high shcool, about equality between the sexes… But in these years  when the State gives way to the thatcherism, the problem of England catch up them : Loïs sees his fiancé dying under his eyes during an attempt of the IRA, the newspaper publishes more and mores articles on the strikes, the IRA and the politics.

It is a rather long but very pleasant book to be read : funny even satiric, in the not too much looked for style, in the fascinating intrigue, in the multiple themes, in the growing interest, in the touching heroes.

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