The Rotter's Club: Summary and book reviews of The Rotter's Club by Jonathan Coe, plus links to an excerpt from The Rotter's Club and a biography of Jonathan Coe.

Birmingham, England, c. 1973: industrial strikes, bad pop music, corrosive class warfare, adolescent angst, IRA bombings. Four friends: a class clown who stoops very low for a laugh; a confused artist enthralled by guitar rock; an earnest radical with socialist leanings; and a quiet dreamer obsessed with poetry, God, and the prettiest girl in school. As the world appears to self-destruct around them, they hold together to navigate the choppy waters of a decidedly ambiguous decade.

Media Reviews

KLIATT - Janet Julien Obscenities, racial slurs, and one of the hottest sex scenes ever make this prize-winning novel appropriate for the mature teen only.   Publishers Weekly As he demonstrated in his well-received novel about the Thatcher years, The Winshaw Legacy, Coe is immensely clever, but that cleverness is almost misplaced here: universal as it may be, adolescent angst doesn't really compare to the problems of massive social change.   Library Journal - Lawrence Rungren Coe covers a lot of ground here, both personal and political, and not all of the plot's loose ends get tied up. Still, this is an affectionately satiric and thoroughly winning portrait of growing up on the brink of the Thatcher era. Recommended.   Kirkus Reviews There's a happy ending of sorts, but plenty of questions wait for Part II. Tasty but filling: a rich (too rich, perhaps) portrait of a time and a place that have received less than their fair share of literary attention.

Recent Reader Reviews

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