by Jonathan Coe
First published 2005
Benjamin Trotter sits in his childhood Birmingham home on New Year's Eve 1999, watching the millennium celebrations unfold on television. Tony Blair's New Labour has transformed Britain into something sleek and modern. On screen, Benjamin sees his younger brother Paul working the crowd at the Millennium Dome. Paul has become a Member of Parliament and one of New Labour's promising figures. Benjamin remains in the same house where they both grew up, now watching his brother's political success from a distance. The two brothers have taken vastly different paths since their teenage years. Paul embraces the optimistic energy of Blair's Britain while Benjamin stays rooted in familiar surroundings. As the new millennium begins, both men believe they understand where their lives are heading. They cannot see the destruction coming for them both. Their assumptions about success, family, and the future will crumble in ways neither brother anticipates.
Genres: literary-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: brothers, contrasting-lives, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Birmingham, Millennium Dome
Period: 1999, New Millennium
433 pages · Paperback · Penguin Books