A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks

By Eithne Farry  on Tuesday 1 September 2009

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State-of-the-nation novel dealing with the diverse lives of a clutch of clichéd contemporary Londoners

A Week in December purports to be a tense complex novel, dramatising the complications of urban life, but is a pretty pedestrian performance. The disaffected, disconnected cast includes a money-obsessed amoral banker, his inebriated brittle wife, their skunk-addicted, alienated son, a couple who made their fortunes in chutney whose son has become involved with Islamic extremists, a Polish premier league footballer, and a rich wife and her newly elected MP husband. On the less moneyed side of the tracks there's a train driver, a snippy book reviewer and a barrister whose lives unconvincingly converge. Set in the winter of 2007, Faulks uses the imminent banking collapse to very obviously point out the doomed nature of the world they inhabit. 

(£18.99, Hutchinson)

Review by Eithne Farry

Release date: Tuesday 1 September 2009

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