Capital: A Novel - Softcover

Lanchester, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393345092 ISBN 13: 9780393345094

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013

Synopsis

"A vibrant piece of fiction, pulsating with events and emotions...Seems destined to be read a hundred years from now." ―Martin Rubin, Los Angeles Times

Each house on Pepys Road, an ordinary street in London, has seen its fair share of first steps and last breaths, and plenty of laughter in between. But each of the street’s residents―a rich banker and his shopaholic wife, a soccer prodigy from Senegal, Pakistani shop owners, a dying old woman and her graffiti-artist son―is receiving a menacing postcard with a simple message: "We Want What You Have." Who is behind this? What do they really want? In Capital, John Lanchester ("an elegant and wonderfully witty writer"―New York Times) delivers a warm and compassionate novel that captures the anxieties of our time―property values going up, fortunes going down, a potential terrorist around every corner―with an unforgettable cast of characters.

About this title

About the Author

John Lanchester is the author of five novels, including The Wall, the best-selling Debt to Pleasure and Capital, as well as several works of nonfiction, including I.O.U. and How to Speak Money. His books, which have been translated into twenty-five languages, have won the Whitbread First Novel Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, and the E. M. Forster Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is a contributing editor to the London Review of Books and a regular contributor to The New Yorker. He lives in London.

Review

“Not only immensely enjoyable but important, too.”
- Claire Messud, author of The Burning Girl

“Lanchester [is] a brainy, pleasure-loving polymath [and] reading Capital is like getting a crash course in the transformation of British mores and class distinctions.”
- Liesl Schillinger, New York Times Book Review

“Full of spectacular comedy―and menace.”
- Ron Charles, Washington Post

“Perfect fireside reading that captures the Trollopean ‘way we live now’ without putting on grand airs.”
- James Wolcott, Vanity Fair

“Lanchester employs a bird’s-eye view that sweeps in for dazzling close-ups, then swoops out again, until you see not only the entirety of Pepys Road, but the city, the world―and the economy that’s crumbling under the weight of everyone’s aspirations.”
- Laura Lippman, New York Magazine

“Searching, expert, on the money. I loved it.”
- Joseph O’Neill, author of Netherland

“Capital comes in a great tradition of novels which are filled with the news of now, in which the intricacies of the present moment are noticed with clarity and relish and then brilliantly dramatized. It is clear that its characters, its wisdom, and the scope and range of its sympathy, will fascinate readers into the far future.”
- Cólm Toibín, author of Brooklyn

“Fresh, astutely observed, and a lot of fun.”
- Sebastian Smee, Boston Globe

“A big, funny, sure-footed novel...rich in observation and warm in spirit.”
- Dan Kois, Slate

“As enrapturing as it is psychologically acute...Capital portrays an authentic slice of contemporary life on the eve of change in a way that recalls Franzen―with a welcome touch of wry humor.”
- Trisha Ping, Bookpage

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0393345092
• ISBN 13: 9780393345094
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528