Shortlisted for the Specsavers National Book Awards 'UK Author of the Year' 2012.
The lives of a disparate group of characters based on a street in London - Pepys Road. We dart quickly between their stories, building up portraits of each and leading us through the dramas of their mostly separate lives. It's easy to read, well researched, long and full of recognisable characters, some coming over as stereotypes, not "The Great London Novel" but certainly fun.
Pepys Road: an ordinary street in the Capital. Each house has seen its fair share of first steps and last breaths, and plenty of laughter in between. Today, through each letterbox along this ordinary street drops a card with a simple message: We Want What You Have. At forty, Roger Yount is blessed with an expensively groomed wife, two small sons and a powerful job in the City. An annual bonus of a million might seem excessive, but with second homes and nannies to maintain, he's not sure he can get by without it. Elsewhere in the Capital, Zbigniew has come from Warsaw to indulge the super-rich in their interior decoration whims. Freddy Kano, teenage football sensation, has left a two-room shack in Senegal to follow his dream. Traffic warden Quentina has exchanged the violence of the police in Zimbabwe for the violence of the enraged middle classes. For them all, this city offers the chance of a different kind of life.
John Lanchester was born in Hamburg in 1962. He has written three novels, The Debtto Pleasure, Mr Phillips and Fragrant Harbour, and two works of non-fiction:Family Romance, a memoir; and Whoops!: Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay, a book about the global financial crisis. He is married, has two children and lives in London.
