Political blogger Christopher Swann attends a conservative conference, uncovers secrets and gets killed - but whodunit? The answer lies somehow in an obscure 1980s novel called My Innocence, the last book by conservative writer Peter Cockerill - or more precisely, an early proof copy of that book…

A new Jonathan Coe novel is always a good thing and, while I wouldn’t put The Proof of My Innocence up there as among his best, it’s an enjoyable enough read to make it worthwhile for all fans of this author.

Coe’s approach is more playful than usual, dividing up the lion’s share of the book into three parts, each one lampooning a trendy literary genre today: Part 1 Murder at Wetherby Pond is “A Cosy Crime Mystery”, Part 2 The Shadow Chamber is “A Dark Academia Story”, and Part 3 Proof/Reborn is “An Essay in Autofiction”.

Despite not being a fan of cosy anything in fiction, the first part was very entertaining and easily the best section of the novel. This concerns the build-up and murder, followed by the introduction of the delightful character of Detective Inspector Prudence Freeborne, and an examination of the key suspects.

The Shadow Chamber is where the novel ground to a halt for me. It’s presented as a memoir of a retired student of Cambridge from the 1980s when many of the key players from the first part were youngsters beginning their path to power during Mrs Thatcher’s administration.

Not a great deal happened in this part with lots of dull plummy talk and an underwhelming and quite silly reveal of what really happens in a conservative professor’s salons at the end. I’ve read exactly one dark academia book - Donna Tartt’s The Secret History - so am far from being an expert in this genre, but I feel like Coe didn’t quite nail this one. The balance was slanted far more in the academia direction and not enough in the dark.

Things pick up slightly in Proof/Reborn as the story returns to the present and the murder victim’s daughter and her friend decide to solve the case themselves. It’s periodically enjoyable - I did want to find out whodunit - but also dragged in places as Coe ambled towards the conclusion, trying to make a point about modern conservatism, the way people think today and other things that I definitely failed to grasp.

Also: autofiction? That is the worst literary genre of all time. Karl Ove Knausgaard and his loathsome ilk can shove right off. “My Struggle” is an apt description of what it’s like reading his ghastly “prose” and suffering through his endlessly odious self-absorption.

The book covers appearing throughout are explained in the end, so not only do we find out whodunit but we get another surprise in the framing of what we’ve just read too, which is clever. It also explains quite why so much of the preceding story had so many coincidences - characters’ names sharing the same letters, the many interpretations of the clue the murder victim wrote in his blood - not to mention the cliched conceit of having the villain monologue their motivations. Although the second reveal closes the book quite tidily too; another layer of conceit to the novel!

Coe’s point in this book seems to be that, since Thatcher, Britain has adopted similar values to Reagan’s America - every man for himself, individualism above all else, no social safety net - and the country has become the poorer for it. Whereas, pre-Thatcher, we lived in a more conscientious, united country, one that created the NHS, etc.

He illustrates the death of the older world by setting the story in September 2022 when the Queen died, and the failures of conservatism with the appointment of Liz Truss as Prime Minister, whose disastrous administration was the shortest in British history (49 days) and tanked the already woeful Covid economy still further.

Whether it’s true that that’s how we got to where we are now, or whether his view of Britain is accurate isn’t for me to say, because I have no idea (although I suspect there’s a smidge more to it than that), but it’s an intriguing viewpoint.

(Incidentally, like his murder victim, Coe has also been writing about conservatism for many years now, especially in books like What a Carve Up! and Number 11, both of which form a small series featuring the Thatcherite Winshaw family - of whom, Josephine Winshaw weirdly cameos in this book too. So… Proof is also set in that same world?)

I would’ve preferred if Coe had fully committed to the locked room murder mystery storyline for the entire book instead of just part of it, because Coe is more than adept in that style and the succeeding, differing parts were definitely lacklustre in comparison. But there were moments in those other parts that were decent, Coe’s writing is as excellent as ever, and I enjoyed the novel well enough - worth a look if you’re a fan of the author and/or genre fiction, though I wouldn’t expect a consistently high quality story in The Proof of My Innocence.

I didn't get on with this at all, despite its obvious intelligence, and adept-enoigh plot build ups, i guess the original main protagonist's boredom effected me too: I simply wasn't engaged...

In this tricksy book, full of literary sleights of hand, Jonathan Coe delves deep into the underbelly of British Conservative politics at the time of Liz Truss’s short spell as prime minister and the death of Queen Elizabeth. And this not a pretty world.
In 2022 we meet Phyl, an aimless graduate with dreams of writing a cosy crime caper. Her mom’s friend from varsity, Christopher, a left-wing commentator and scourge of the Tories, is visiting on the eve of an extreme-right conference, which he plans to disrupt with bombshell revelations that threaten very powerful people
We then find ourselves in a novel-within-a-novel set at such a conference and where a baffling murder takes place. Enter Inspector Prudence Freeborne who sets about solving the case.
One of the suspects is Roger Wagstaff, a literary critic who’s made it his life work to revive the reputation of Peter Cockerill, a much-maligned author who killed himself back in the day.
It’s a tangled web and Coe employs various literary games to get to the bottom of it all, which, while amusing at times, sadly become a bit of a yawn.

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC!

I'd never read Jonathan Coe before, so I don't know if The Proof of My Innocence is typical of his writing style. I found it light, a bit broad in humour and theme, and experimental in ways that didn't work with those two descriptors. I'm a fan of media that plays with "reality", books within books, where you don't know what's meant to be "real" or what's meant to be fiction in the author's created reality. I loved The Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas. Atonement by Ian McEwan. But both of those books had tones that earned their meta. TPOMI did not, in my opinion. It was too superficial, too comedic in a non-intellectual way. I found the meta/playing irritating rather than engaging.

TPOMI centres on.... Well, what does it centre on? Without spoiling, it's hard to say. A good portion of the books is a murder mystery, which is well-enough done, although the author gives away the twist early on and then continues as if it's still a mystery. There's also an "auto-fiction" style story of a young student at Cambridge in the 1980s, which contains clues that tie into the mystery. Both stories detail the rise of the extreme right in the UK, spreading to the USA, and that aspects is interesting and disturbing. It's also frustratingly superficial and broad. A journalist calling everything "woke"? Coe feels no need to try and convince his readers of anything and just assumes they're on the same page. I would have liked a bit more depth to the politics. Sometimes the novel felt like scrolling through pre-Musk Twitter, in which young people accuse older of hating them because they don't like their own lives. Just... broad, like I said.

There were a decent number of plot-holes and things that didn't make sense if you thought about them for more than a minute. The characters and their voices all felt very samey, without truly distinct personalities. There was a weird random lecture about asexuality that had nothing to do with anything else in the book. The title turns out to be a really annoying twist on language and there's one element of the murder mystery, involving the TV show Friends, that made me roll my eyes so hard it hurt. All that said, I was entertained enough to read all the way through and intrigued enough to wonder if I'd like some of the author's earlier books.

This is a fantastic book. As a fan of both Jonathan Coe and murder mysteries, it was great to see them come together, but Coe has elevated the mystery genre several levels.

The story sees the murder of a left wing blogger uncover powerful right wing networks that have been organising for decades to shift Britain rightwards. Coe brilliantly creates very convincing characters, rooted in real events from the 1980s to the present day. His description of what one such network was getting up to in the early 1980s, ahead of the 1984-85 miners' strike, and currently in terms of NHS privatisation, is very well done. It's scary because it's true.

The novel is set in the present day (well, the time of Liz Truss's time in office and the death of the queen) and shows how characters and events have been shaped by what came before.

It begins innocuously enough with a young woman, Phyl, who has returned home after university and is somewhat unsure of what she should be doing with her life. The story then takes us back to the time when her mother, Jo, was a student at Cambridge university and various characters she knew there.

I'm probably not doing this novel justice because I'm trying not to give away any spoilers as to the specifics of the plot. But the characters are interesting and well-defined, and the plot is fantastic. It's also a sharp comment on crime writing and auto fiction, with Coe somehow managing to weave in the kind of elements you'd expect in a whodunnit (games with characters' initials and names, the mystery of a 'locked door murder') without being smug or ridiculing about it.

Thanks to Netgalley for the access.

Metafictional political thriller-whodunnit-comedy
—
This has it all, and yet, the centre will not hold.

Opening with the coming-of-age tale of Phyl in a holding pattern of ennui when life coalesces around her, the world and the lives of her parent’s friends coming into focus; taking inspiration from everything around her, Phyl begins to spin a tale as a cosy crime, dark academia and autofiction, and in doing so, she might come closer to the dangerous truth than anyone might expect.

Covering so many genres in one novel, like another release this year, you would anticipate that each would be a well-written version of that form. Admittedly, in the world of the book, they’re all written by Phyl, a neophyte novelist who’s barely written anything before, and so perhaps they should start off bad, get better, and improve. But the first book is baaad, the second a little better, the third—well, it’s supposed to be a bestseller.

For me, three stars.

Many years ago I read What a Carve Up! by Johnathan Coe - a brilliant political satire looking at the changes our nation was going through under Thatcher. Post war Britain moved away from a country trying to create a more equal, fairer, community based society to one that put selfishness and greed at its heart. This all culminates in the short term of Liz Truss’s disastrous premiership which is when this novel takes places. Once again Johnathan Coe surveys the nation and considers where it all went wrong.
With the far right on the rise, perhaps the best way to get by, is to read an extremely funny satire. Not just funny but poignant and clever. Highly recommended.

Clever and witty as usual eith Jonathan Coe, but I felt myself enjoying it less as it went on - the last of the books within the book was my least favourite, and liked one ending more than the next!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This was my first Jonathan Coe and is unlikely to be my last - I found this novel very intriguing and, while the meshing together of genres didn't always work completely, it was a really refreshing and interesting read, as well as very funny at times. A Brexit murder mystery!

I’m glad I persevered.

Phil is forced to move home after completing her degree. She works at a sushi restaurant at Terminal 4 Heathrow. Her plans for becoming an author are put onto hold.

Her mother, a clergywoman has invited Chris a friend from her days at Cambridge to stay with the family as he’s arranged to attend a conference in the Cotswolds, his adopted daughter Rashida, joins him. It seems like he’s only just left for this far-right conservative gathering when they receive news of his death. He’s been murdered.

Inspector Prudence Freeborne oversees finding the murderer – however -Phyl and Rash decide to also investigate his murder.

I’ve not come across Jonathan Coe’s work before plunging head-first into reading this novel. It was a wild ride! From Liz Truss and the lettuce that lived longer than her appointment as Prime Minister, to the friendship that Chris and Phyl’s mother had dating back to their time at Cambridge University. The fact that there were three books nestled within this book astonished me and caused quite a lot of confusion and I’m so pleased that I decided to persevere to the end. I might even be tempted to read more of Jonathan Coe’s work.

Rony

Elite Reviewing Group received a copy of the book to review from NetGalley.

The Proof of My Innocence, by Jonathan Coe - book review

What will we think of Jonathan Coe’s novel, The Proof of my Innocence, in 30 years’ time? And does it matter? Like Anthony Horowitz’s Alan Conway/Atticus Pünd/Susan Ryeland series, Coe offers us a novel that seeks to subvert its own form, but while Horowitz gives us smooth entertainment, Coe comes up with something altogether more freewheeling which is somehow both lighter and heavier. Lighter - because he breaks so many rules that you’re not always sure how to approach the material. Heavier - because Coe is busy asking questions of the reader and doesn’t hang around waiting for our answers.
Supposedly, this is all about Liz Truss. The novel opens with her poised to become prime minister; its last pages quote from her resignation speech. Coe is furious that her brand of Conservatism (which we’ll a little sloppily label as ‘popcon’) could have propelled her to power and he’s keen to emphasise what he considers that particular ideology’s illegitimacy: it can win office only by being dishonest about its intentions and its victory, however short-lived, shows the rottenness of a society that pits old against young, puts a stop to the limited social mobility that was possible during the post-war consensus and which, moreover, can no longer agree on what constitutes a fact.
Some of these themes have been previously explored by Coe and others. What’s different here is that Coe shifts through three literary genres: cosy crime, dark academia and autofiction. The requirements of each genre mean that although the over-arching plot does make perfect sense, there are inconsistencies that can trip up the reader. These inconsistencies don’t restrict themselves to facts: we spend quite some time trying to work out whether Coe is sympathetic to each of these genres and what that sympathy might mean.
Take cosy crime, for example. Coe takes the notion of the eccentric detective and really runs with it; he criticises familiar elements such as secret passageways. The supposed writer is doing cosy crime because she thinks it will be easy. So where there are elements that don’t necessarily land, we can’t necessarily tell whether Coe’s doing it on purpose.
He’s on firmer ground when we get to dark academia, and maybe this is where his loyalty lies, as he’s covered 1980s excess before. A theme of dark academia is that higher education was so much better when people (students, lecturers) could wander around reading novels all day: a character who has supposedly come to come to study medicine but spends his time in the philosophy, history or English literature lecture halls is one of the heroes of the novel. Social circles at 1980s Cambridge were determined on class lines, but this means that although we can seethe at the exclusion of the novel’s main protagonists from the ranks of those who will, forty years later, be the thinkers behind Truss, we don’t really get to see the popconners up close.
And the reaction of the normal folk is to find their niche, away from the corridors of power. They might become a vicar and undertake minor good works, or set up an ethical business. What they don’t do is find ways to seriously oppose those with power. Even the great scoop that someone thinks they’ve got, had it been published, would have done very little to change the political narrative. Truss was brought down by the markets, not by her associations with Tufton Street which were widely known about even if they were not always transparently reported.
I wonder whether Coe believes that he should himself have done more. He appears here, lightly disguised, as a Cambridge student and a contemporary of the popconners. And when he isn’t encouraging us to think about the potency of literary fashion, and having his characters be furious at the success of Martin Amis (in particular, Money) he’s asking: what should, what could a novelist do about it all? Is it right to pander to fashion, or should a writer aim for legacy? And where does truth fit in with all this, anyhow?
Those are big questions, and at times things can get a bit overwhelming. Coe is a master of the set piece, and feeds us a few; at times we’re wondering whether we’re missing too many of the references. Is this a reference to Women in Love? Is that a reference to Don’t Look Now? (Yes, it was.) You don’t have to notice them all, in fact you don’t need to notice any of them. But to get the most out of this novel you need to be prepared to let Coe take you in numerous directions. There’s some cosy crime and some laughs at Liz Truss’s expense, sure, but - unlike your standard mystery writer - Coe wants you to do some work. The state of the nation depends on it.

Quite a complicated plot set at different times, but with mostly the same characters , at different stages in their lives. The book is told from different viewpoints . At the heart, is friendship, between 3 people who met at Cambridge university, the people they associated with and the political beliefs of the 80s when they were at university which have had long reaching effects on British society and culture. The daughters of two of this group of 3 also meet up and develop a friendship up until and in the aftermath of the death of Christopher (one of the original group). They become interested in finding out more about what happened and who was involved, but Phyll also wants to write a book.
This book is intricate and has plenty to say about the political climate in the 80s as well as in the period that Liz Truss was prime minister and around the time of the death of the late Queen. The characterizations are good and conversations and events believable, certainly there is satire and humour but also plenty of twists in the plot along the way .It kept my interest throughout, though I`ll definately be trying to sort out some of the events in my mind in the coming days.
Thanks to Net Galley for a great read

As Britain mourns the Queen and Liz Truss tries to bring the country out of its post-Covid malaise, a Right-Wing think tank is holding a conference in the Cotswolds. There an opponent of the group is murdered. Meanwhile, recent graduate Phyl is contemplating her future and thinks about being a novelist.
It is so hard to describe this book and that is the joy of it. At heart is a polemic against extreme Right-Wing views but it's wrapped up in a murder mystery that is written in three literary forms. Except that isn't quite it either! Whatever the truth is doesn't matter, it's just absolute classic Coe. The satire is both sharp and subtle in places - too many instances to mention but I did love the fact that one strand hangs on knowledge of 'Friends' episodes. Very clever and supremely entertaining

I really enjoy a mystery and have also enjoyed several 'book within a book's previously so was hopeful for this latest offering from Coe, especially after loving his Bournville last year. I very much liked the blossoming friendship between Phyl and Rash and the humorous Prudence. The setting and the reference to the older characters' lives at university was right up my street.
I understand why several characters needed to share initials but this did make the mystery particularly confusing and harder to read than I would have liked.
All in all this is an enjoyable read and a compelling mystery.

Reading a review this weekend of a new TV series set in the 80s, I found myself agreeing with the writer's point that to portray the 80s, you need to stir in a good deal of the 70s. Coe would I think agree, at least one of the characters in his novel would, asking as she does when the 80s began? (The answer isn't 1 January 1980).

The 80s 'beginning' is code in this discussion for the onset of the individualistic, consensus-breaking phase in UK national life which has often been a theme, or lurking in the background, of Coe's novels. It's particularly appropriate here since The Proof of my Innocence focusses on what one may hope is the end, or the beginning of the end, of that worldview, with a bunch of highly unattractive and ideologically bent conservatives meeting in a rural hotel to set their world to rights. This takes place as the Queen (THE Queen: sorry, but that's what she'll always be even for this anti-monarchist) dies, and Liz Truss is appointed to her catastrophic period as PM. (When I reviewed Coe's last novel, Bournville, which appeared just after that time and had a key episode around most of the significant points of post war British history, I noted it was a shame that publication timetables meant he had missed that one - he does though take it in here, most notably The Queue, is a sequence that could almost be a coda to the earlier book).

Coe is though slightly playing games with the reader: the conference section is in a part of the book that also, or perhaps primarily, explores the conventions and settings of the cosy crime genre (the out-of-this-world setting, the eccentric detective, the unlikely murder) as subsequent sections do dark academia and autofiction (in a pleasingly meta way). They're not parodies or pastiches of those genres, still less I think meant as straight examples, but those styles do influence the events and characters. So after the gruesome country house section introduces a foodie detective who's about to retire, we get a memoir of 80s Cambridge which touches on a cabal who meet behind locked doors (and I think a walk on part by Coe himself?) and then a jointly narrated section by the two young women whose story frames this book, inspired by autofiction.

What these three interrelated stories are all about though is unpicking the tragic story of a novelist, Peter Cockerel, who committed suicide, also in the 1980s. He's a shadowy figure whose books have been given a posthumous revival by an academic, also an attendee at that conference. Cockerill's voice gives Coe an opportunity to explore a conservative worldview and vision at one remove, or two, perhaps, with something of the same distancing effect that MR James might use in a ghost: here is something I found, in the last quarter of the previous century, in an old manuscript; and here is the trouble it got me into. That distancing is I think important here as it creates a separation between what is at least a fairly human view of conservatism and the grotesque cult that it now seems to be. Perhaps that's a true difference of perhaps it's just nostalgia. In either case Coe demonstrates, and comments on, the difference, and suggests how it perhaps arose (that moment when the 80s began!) but he is wise enough to not try to diagnose it in detail.

Rather, the point is illustrated, in a variety of settings, throughout the book in encounters with lift controls, overheard chat on a train, and even a character who, unwittingly, sings in his sleep. What goes on in our heads, and our ability to empathise with what goes on own others' minds, is important here. Some things should be shared and others, not. Both individuality and the collective experience matter, but the boundaries between the two can shift and that is not a light matter.

In a book that features murder (perhaps more than once), suicide, and other deaths, it's hardly surprising that bereavement and how we cope with it, or don't, is also a theme. Death is of course one of the great internal/ external events in life so is a suitable part of the book's subject.

As always with Coe's books, I found The Proof of my Innocence very entertaining and funny, but it also made me think hard about appearances and reality (as I said, he plays some games). As the husband of a vicar, and someone who has far too many books, I also took the opening scenes, in a book infested rectory, very personally, and wondered if, indeed, Coe doesn't have uncanny abilities to see into others' minds...

I recently took a train in the UK, the first time for several years, seeing I don't live there. There was an exceedingly irritating security announcement in all the stations and trains every few minutes ending in "See it. Say it. Sorted". Apparently it irritated Jonathan Coe as well (to be honest, I can't imagine anyone not being irritated by it) as it is a recurring theme throughout the book. He manages to turn the irritation into humour, and indeed the whole book is immensely funny, as we have been led to expect from him. There are, of course, the inevitable references to lettuces (the book is set in the brief period of Liz Truss' prime ministership), but that is not overdone.
A particularly enjoyable aspect is that he also has fun with the cosy mystery genre, and indeed pokes fun at the literally world as a whole. I enjoyed the horror of the professional writer at discovering that they were talking to someone writing a novel and the thought that they might start to tell them all about it. He also has some interesting side comments on the process of writing, like a discussion on writing in the present or past tense (or was that meant humorously as well)? He even pokes fun at himself, giving himself a cameo part as a student at Cambridge.
The book is very political. Liz Truss' disastrous term of office is the backdrop and he does an excellent job of exposing the right wing of the Conservative party as being completely out of touch with reality and hungry for power. Of course, he does that in an amusing way too.
There is a lot to like about this book. The only thing I was less enthusiastic about was that I didn't feel he had quite mastered the cosy mystery genre. That's fine though, it means he was more himself, and we could not ask for better than that.
Acknowledgement: Thanks to the publisher for providing an advance review copy (via Netgalley) in return for an honest review.

The Proof of my Innocence is a great blend of political satire, modern mystery and literary parody. Set against the backdrop of Liz Truss's brief premiership and the passing of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, Coe crafts a narrative that is both timely and timeless.

The story follows Phyl, a recent university graduate who, while thinking about her post-uni future, becomes entangled in a web of political intrigue and murder. The author's portrayal of Phyl is both relatable and engaging, capturing the uncertainties of post-university life with authenticity.

One of the novel's standout features is its structural ingenuity. Divided into sections that each pay homage to different literary genres—cosy crime, dark academia, and autofiction—Coe really showcases his versatility. He manages to keep the narrative fresh whilst inviting readers to think about the nature of storytelling itself - all whilst creating an entertaining, 'cosy crime' feel without being too twee! For me it's the perfect balance.

The political commentary is sharp and insightful, offering a critique of contemporary Britain that is humorous and thought-provoking. Coe's depiction of a right-wing think tank's conspiracies provides a chilling reminder of the real-world implications of political extremism.

The Proof of My Innocence is a great blend of genres with compelling characters and incisive social commentary. I'd highly recommend it.

Another topical satire from the pen of Jonathan Coe is always welcome and this one pokes fun at lots of sacred cows: the alt right, Conservative Little Englanders, the Old Etonian brigade, working class kids made good, narcissistic writers, snowflakes, cosy crime, secret societies and more.

It’s beautifully written, fun and Coe plays around delightfully with some of the current writing trends. I don’t know if it’s true but I can imagine him snort-laughing at his typewriter when some new idea for a target comes to him - I hope he does!

With thanks to NetGalley, Penguin and Jonathan Coe for an arc of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book of many strands, ambitious, with flipping over and back. I enjoyed the experience of reading it however, the pulling of everything together felt somewhat disjoined. It's a literature lovers book, no doubt, but decidedly self consciously so - the ending worked well,
Thank you for an opportunity to read - will be posting to goodreads and amazon at a later time.

I was given a copy of The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Jonathan Coe's What a Carve Up! remains a top-notch read. A bitingly intelligent twist of the knife towards the uncaring privileged before 'eat the rich' really reached its zenith (I said post-pandemic, really). I read The House of Sleep (which I'm sure I liked) but didn't quite get through Middle England; the novel meant to encapsulate the Brexit story and continue Coe's searing insight into the state of the British character.

This book started off fairly well, covering a young girl seemingly at a loose end. It was intriguing and very akin to a Coe character. Clever, inquisitive, unsure of what will happen next. We are then invited to meet a guest of the parents with a famous blog and an adopted daughter. The pieces are starting to fall into place. It would be remiss not to mention Friends, the TV show that gets featured as a stop for nostalgia. A side note: I learned the word anemia to represent nostalgia people have for a time when they weren't even born. Excellent.

The action then moves into another style of writing. Away from a girl who is aimless and now the family's guest, he becomes the new character to follow as he attends a conference with several people shrouded in unpleasantness (these people are connected to the extreme Conservative movement behind the Trust premiership).

Then, when an event happens there, we are transported to another twist, that of a memoir written by one of the characters, which is arguably the most interesting part of the story and one that seems to ape Coe's interest in Dark Academia, where characters use words like meretricious garbage and the author explains (interestingly) that life really changed after the first mobile phone call in the UK, in 1985.

The book returns to the beginning in some ways as we return to our narrator from the start, Phyl. We also have Rachida join the mix as they try to solve the riddle of what happened at the conference. The ending, although intelligent, is highly implausible and, while very readable, left me feeling that this book was a mass of ideas strapped down with staples.

Coe is a very able, natural writer. This book was enjoyable in parts but too discombobulated to rank as a classic.