{"id":5114,"date":"2014-05-08T11:27:16","date_gmt":"2014-05-08T11:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=5114"},"modified":"2014-05-12T11:07:59","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T11:07:59","slug":"fallout-by-sadie-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=5114","title":{"rendered":"Fallout by Sadie Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Chatto & Windus 1 May 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

416pp, hardback, \u00a314.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Elsbeth Lindner<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Suspension of disbelief is the novelist’s stock in trade and Sadie Jones works extremely hard to persuade readers of her fourth novel to put logic on hold, in a story that defies gravity while delivering an undeniable measure of indulgent satisfaction.<\/p>\n

The scenario is the London theatrical world of the 1960s and early 1970s (cue some rather highly-coloured and melodramatic events as well as a range of deliciously nostalgic fashion), a carefully detailed evocation of the era of Equus<\/em> and Morecambe & Wise, biros and Rolodexes.<\/p>\n

Against this cherishable backdrop, Jones presents two poles of womanhood \u2013 feisty feminist Leigh and droopy victim Nina. Her hero is Luke, the firebrand playwright, son of an introverted Polish immigrant father and a much loved mother long-incarcerated in a mental hospital. Both Leigh and Nina love Luke in their individual ways, and he loves them back, but differently. What Luke does for love is one of the stretched-credulity aspects of this entirely readable tale, along with what Nina and Leigh, at various stages, do and don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Readers will surely relish a return to Jones-land, where emotions run deep and the storytelling \u2013 in notable, award-winning novels such as The Outcast <\/em>and Small Wars <\/em>– is grown-up. Yet there are those dangling plausibilities. Really, would they do \u2013 or not do – that? Yes, this is a novel about the stage, but even so, its stagey-ness seems something of a misjudgement.<\/p>\n

Reader, you are going to have to make your own choices on this one. Although not this author\u2019s finest book, Fallout<\/em> offers quality entertainment and solid, carefully-crafted tale-spinning. As a recreation of a recent yet simultaneously distant era, it does an absorbing and memorable job. We could \u2013 and often do \u2013 do a great deal worse.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Elsbeth Lindner<\/p>\n

Readers will surely relish a return to Jones-land, where emotions run deep and the storytelling \u2013 in notable, award-winning novels such as The Outcast<\/em> and Small Wars<\/em> – is grown-up. Yet there are those dangling plausibilities. Really, would they do \u2013 or not do – that? Yes, this is a novel about the stage, but even so, its stagey-ness seems something of a misjudgement […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5114"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5117,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5114\/revisions\/5117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}