Fallout
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4.0 • 4 Ratings
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
The intoxicating new novel from the number one bestselling author of The Outcast
London 1972. Luke is dazzled by the city. It seems a world away from the provincial town he has fled along with his own troubled past, and his new life is unrecognisable – one of friendships forged in pubs, candlelit power cuts, and smoky late-night parties.
When Nina, a fragile and damaged actress, strays into his path, Luke is immediately drawn to her and the delicate balance of his new life is threatened. Unable to stay away from her, Luke is torn between loyalty, desire and his own painful past, until everything he values, even the promise of the future, is in danger…
Longlisted for the IMPAC Prize
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jones's latest (after The Uninvited Guests) follows the career of Luke Kanowski, who leaves behind his dysfunctional family in Northern England and moves to London in the late 1960s to pursue a career as a playwright. He is soon befriended by aspiring producer Paul Driscoll and Paul's girlfriend, Leigh Radley; together, the three start a small theater company called Graft. The trio's fulfilling artistic life together gradually comes under the strain of Luke's compulsive womanizing and Leigh's unrequited attraction to him. Their rocky triangle is further threatened by Nina Jacobs, who has been groomed by her mother, a failed actress, for a life on the stage; Luke becomes obsessed with Nina's melancholy beauty, but her marriage to an abusive theater producer, Tony, complicates their romance. As Luke and Nina embark on a torrid love affair, Luke finds success on his own as a playwright and is forced to choose between his hard-to-please beloved and the friends who have nursed his ambitions. An engrossing melodrama of theater life, the novel's only drawback is Jones's tendency toward precious turns of phrase. Her talent emerges most in the absorbing plot, which convincingly shows how friends can be torn apart by lust and ambition.
