The Echo Chamber
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4.4 • 37 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
'His relish is infectious' Times
'The funniest book I've read in ages. Savage but compelling' Ian Rankin
'Funny, rumbustious, unstinting and wonderfully Hogarthian' The Observer
'Sharp, funny, and beautifully written... a brilliant reflection on the landscape we now live in' Joanna Cannon
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What a thing of wonder a mobile phone is. Six ounces of metal, glass and plastic, fashioned into a sleek, shiny, precious object. At once, a gateway to other worlds - and a treacherous weapon in the hands of the unwary, the unwitting, the inept.
The Cleverley family live a gilded life, little realising how precarious their privilege is, just one tweet away from disaster. George, the patriarch, is a stalwart of television interviewing, a 'national treasure' (his words), his wife Beverley, a celebrated novelist (although not as celebrated as she would like), and their children, Nelson, Elizabeth, Achilles, various degrees of catastrophe waiting to happen.
Together they will go on a journey of discovery through the Hogarthian jungle of the modern living where past presumptions count for nothing and carefully curated reputations can be destroyed in an instant. Along the way they will learn how volatile, how outraged, how unforgiving the world can be when you step from the proscribed path.
Powered by John Boyne's characteristic humour and razor-sharp observation, The Echo Chamber is a satiric helter skelter, a dizzying downward spiral of action and consequence, poised somewhere between farce, absurdity and oblivion. To err is maybe to be human but to really foul things up you only need a phone.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
John Boyne's The Echo Chamber introduces us to the Cleverley family and a masterful satire told through the dysfunctional perspective of each family member. Through dad George, a BBC host and self-appointed “national treasure” and his author wife, Beverley (who hasn’t published anything in years) we peer through an obnoxious lens at middle-class concerns including cancel culture and Twitter likes. And their three children might be even more annoying. The cracks in the perfect family facade begin to appear when George’s Twitter account lands them in hot water and from here, the family navigate the looming threat of cancellation with hilarious consequences. Boyne’s brilliant, accessible writing reflects modern culture with relatably sharp precision.
