Product Description

Against a distant backdrop of strikes, terrorist attacks and growing racial tension, a group of young friends inherit the editorship of their school magazine and begin to put their own distinctive spin onto events in the wider world. A zestful comedy of personal and social upheaval, THE ROTTERS' CLUB captures a fateful moment in British politics - the collapse of 'Old Labour' - and imagines its impact on the topsy-turvy world of the bemused teenager: a world in which a lost pair of swimming trunks can be just as devastating as an IRA bomb.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #401282 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Customer Reviews

Nostalgia is the new black
I came by this book through the TV series - as ever the book is even better than a great TV effort. It just encapsulates everything about the 70's to a tee. Modern writers write with a real passion for recent histort ( David Nicholls - 80's: Steve Horsfall - 70's / 80's). The past offers fond memories and this book ignites them all. Jonathan Coe is a great writer and I'm now going to buy The Closed Circle with great anticipation.

Just a really good read
This book is excellent, and I would really recommend it. Like all Coe's books it has that nice, slightly bittersweet feel to it. In this case, the story does a great job of blending it's considerable dose of nostalgia with immediately recognisable characters. For those able to remember the times covered by the story it should be a wryly humourous reminder of life way back when. On the other hand, for anyone younger the story should still have more than enough resonance, dealing with all the emotional trials and tribulations you'd expect from a coming of age tale. Short of re-telling the story, what more can I say? This is just a really well-written, moving and enjoyable read. Two enthusiastic thumbs up.

A truly satisfying must read novel.
There’s something magical about teenage years in The Rotters’ Club, thanks to that privileged public school. It’s an intellectual thing that can’t help but make you wish your school had been more ideas driven and school life more rounded and safely challenging. But for all that, this is an extremely accessible book that reads as a balanced, nostalgic but not romantic and incredibly broad portrait of a time I’m just too young to remember.

Like John King’s Human Punk, The Rotters’ Club captures the pop cultural experience of the 1970s (though while King’s book is set at the outbreak of punk among suburban proletariat, Coe is just before the revolution hits the middle class). IRA terrorism, the rise of the National Front and the industrial strife that destroyed Old Labour all impact on the very real characters’ lives to create a truly satisfying must read novel.