Caledonian Road: A Novel

"Well, it feels like all of London is talking about Andrew O’Hagan’s Caledonian Road . (All of England, apparently, according to the Washington Post . ) It is, as the Guardian describes it , a “state of the nation burlesque” in the Dickensian mould, that is, a social novel with an ensemble cast: “a bold, bullish tale of hubris and corruption, a book simultaneously dazzled and disgusted by the city it depicts.” It stars the celebrity art historian Campbell Flynn, who has risen swiftly through the social ranks thanks to his great intellect and aristocratic wife (and who bears, one might note, some superficial resemblances to the author himself, the Glasgow-born writer and LRB editor-at-large who has long been a stalwart of the London literati). Flynn is overdue a fall, it seems, and on his way down we meet a great many of his near-neighbours on the Caledonian Road , an Islington street that spans every social class along its mile-and-a-half extent. It is, adds the New Statesman , “a brick of a novel lobbed at the towering glass houses of London.” My own copy has just thudded onto my doormat, all 600 pages of it. I’ll report back. In the meantime, you can read an excerpt online ."