Shrines of Gaiety
The Sunday Times Bestseller
-
-
4.0 • 84 Ratings
-
-
- $15.99
Publisher Description
From the incomparable author of LIFE AFTER LIFE and DEATH AT THE SIGN OF THE ROOK, a story of nightclub owners and socialites, gangsters and dancing girls set in 1920s Soho.
'Seduction, betrayal, and larger-than-life characters that will have you hooked until the last page' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
Atkinson on her finest form. A marvel of plate-spinning narrative knowhow, a peak performance of consummate control.' OBSERVER
'Brilliant' RICHARD OSMAN
____
1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time.
At the heart of this glittering world is notorious Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie's empire faces threats from without and within. For beneath the dazzle of Soho's gaiety, there is a dark underbelly, a world in which it is all too easy to become lost.
With her unique Dickensian flair, Kate Atkinson brings together a glittering cast of characters in a truly mesmeric novel that captures the uncertainty and mutability of life; of a world in which nothing is quite as it seems.
_____
'This is the perfect novel for uncertain times.' THE TIMES
'I can think of few writers other than Dickens who can match it' SUNDAY TIMES
'Kate Atkinson is simply one of the best writers working today, anywhere in the world' GILLIAN FLYNN
'This book is one to savour, for the energy, for the wit, for the tenderness of characterisation that make Atkinson enduringly popular' GUARDIAN
'As vividly filthy, populous, dangerous as anything described by Dickens, but writing is closer to Thackeray's...Atkinson is a novelist of unrivalled immediacy, authority, and skill.' FINANCIAL TIMES
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
There may be no contemporary writer more fascinated by the England of the first half of the 20th century than Kate Atkinson. You can feel that deep reverence across every page of Shrines of Gaiety, the award-winning author's latest novel. Set amid the grit, grime and glamour of 1920s London, the story centres around notorious nightclub owner Nellie "Ma" Coker, loosely based on the infamous Soho "Night Club Queen" Kate Meyrick. Newly emerged from prison, Nellie finds herself facing vipers on all sides as she tries to protect her empire and her family from would-be usurpers in both law enforcement and the city's teeming criminal underworld. Atkinson can be relied on for stellar pacing, a richly imagined cast of supporting characters and a deft blend of historical fiction and magic realism, and Shrines of Gaiety will leave readers yearning for its vivid world once they turn the last page.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The title of Atkinson's glittering foray into London's post-WWI Soho (after Big Sky) comes from the obituary of real-life club maven Kate Meyrick, the inspiration for protagonist Nellie Coker. It's cause for celebration in 1926 when a "party crowd of motley provenance" gathers to greet Coker on her release from Holloway women's prison after her arrest in a raid on her illegal club. They include most of her six children; moral crusader Det. Chief Insp. John Frobisher of Bow Street Station; and outsider Gwendolyn Kelling, a York librarian and former war nurse seeking two female friends who, like many a girl in the vile city, have gone missing or been dumped in the Thames—and some of them worked for Nellie. Overlapping plots reveal nefarious schemes to end Nellie's firm grip on her five dens of iniquity, which are frequented by royalty and celebrities. Nellie will not go down easily amid internecine family battles, corrupt police forces, and ghosts from the past out for bloody revenge. The long shadow of the Great War gives way to the fuggy Jazz Age atmosphere of dance halls, drug dens, Belgravia spielers, abortionists, and roving pickpockets who take to the "stage of duplicity and disguise," as Gwendolyn views the demimonde while working undercover for Frobisher. Atkinson's incisive prose and byzantine narrative elegantly excavate the deceit, depravity, and destruction of Nellie's world. She also turns this rich historical into a sophisticated cat-and-mouse tale as the various actors try to move in on Nellie's turf. Atkinson is writing at the top of her game.
Customer Reviews
Plenty of smart twists and turns
Atkinson is a deft author able to keep multiple narrative threads running without ever losing sight of telling a cracking tale.