Viking snaps up 'brilliant' new state of the nation novel by Coe

Viking has snapped up a "brilliant" new state-of-the-nation novel by Jonathan Coe.

Publisher Mary Mount acquired UK and Commonwealth rights for Bournville from Caroline Wood at Felicity Bryan. It will publish in hardback in November 2022. 

The book is set in the Birmingham suburb of Bournville, and follows a family down the generations, as their sense of national and personal identity is shaped by a series of major public events. The novel begins with the VE Day celebrations in 1945, as England starts to ask itself questions about the nature of the horrific war it has just been through, and ends in the summer of 2020, with the 75th anniversary of VE Day coming amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The publisher said: "This is the story of how a group of characters, and this country, has navigated the last 75 years of drastic social change, only to now find themselves adrift, bewildered and divided."

Coe said: "My new novel explores the present state of England by looking back at our recent history, telling the story of one suburban family as it celebrates a series of landmark occasions both public and private. It’s a novel about wartime nostalgia and English exceptionalism, the royal family and the World Cup, domestic secrets and national myths. Oh, and chocolate. A lot of it is about chocolate."

Mount added: "Middle England (Viking) was the novel we needed at the time of Brexit and boy do we need Jonathan again now. Bournville is the story of who we are, at our worst, and best. Coe writes with such rare humour and humanity and this novel holds up a mirror to our past and our present."