BookBrowse Reviews The Closed Circle: A compelling, dramatic and often funny depiction of the way we live now. Novel

From the book jacket: The characters of The Rotters' Club (2001), Jonathan Coe's nostalgic, humorous evocation of adolescent life in the 1970s, have bartered their innocence for the vengeance of middle age in a story that is very much of the moment, charged with such issues as 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. As Cool Britannia is forced to address its ongoing racial and social tensions — and as its role in America's "war on terrorism" grows increasingly compromised - The Closed Circle shuttles between London and Birmingham, where fat cats, politicos, media advisers, and protesters in both locales lay bare an era when policy and PR have become indistinguishable. Meanwhile,...