Twenty-two in '22: Fallout

I've set myself modest reading targets in each of the last three years and failed every time (I managed 17 in '19, 11 in '20 and 18 in '21), so I'm determined to read 22 books in '22. I'll review them all here.

3/22: Fallout by Sadie Jones

The blurb: London 1972. Luke is dazzled by the city. It seems a world away from the provincial town he has fled along with his own troubled past, and his new life is unrecognisable – one of friendships forged in pubs, candlelit power cuts, and smoky late-night parties.

When Nina, a fragile and damaged actress, strays into his path, Luke is immediately drawn to her and the delicate balance of his new life is threatened. Unable to stay away from her, Luke is torn between loyalty, desire and his own painful past, until everything he values, even the promise of the future, is in danger…

The review: I'm trying to think when I last finished a book and had such a strong feeling of "God, I wish I'd written this." It hasn't happened for a long time - I think maybe Cormac McCarthy was the last author to prompt that sort of reaction in me, when I read No Country For Old Men. Anyway, I guess that's the TLDR: this book is so bloody good, I wish I'd written it myself. Or, at the very least, that I could write like this.

You've read the blurb, so let me add to it that Luke's "new life" is on the fringe of London's theatre scene, and Fallout is a rich evocation of that world, from the sex-comedy farce of Soho, through the serious theatre of the West End and on to what would now be called start-ups, theatre in the margins. It's in the latter that Luke and his friends operate. Understandably, Luke's friends are not mentioned in the brief blurb, but Paul and Leigh, a couple who are themselves embedded in the theatre, are so important to the story. The changing nature of the triangle between these three is delicately played out by Jones over the course of the book; that all three remain sympathetic throughout is testament to the storytelling prowess on display here.

Luke's relationship with Nina is cleverly teased from the outset too; they come so close to meeting before they eventually do, it is almost like they are star-crossed, destined to irreversibly change each other's lives. But are they destined to be together? Well, I want to avoid spoilers, as ever, but let's just say that this is a Sadie Jones novel, and she doesn't deal in the obvious or pat endings. Make of that what you will. What I will say is that the actual ending, which plays out like an epilogue, is very satisfying. Beyond that, you'll just have to read it all for yourself.

Also worthy of note is Jones's treatment of Luke's parents; they are scarcely in the book as active characters, especially his mother, who is basically only in the opening scene ... and yet they are there throughout, a brooding presence in Luke's life, a permanent blurring of his worldview. Not once does this feel repetitious, or clichéd, or a trope, so deftly is it written.

Talking of deft writing, the evocation of the early 70s feels spot on - I could see the cigarette smoke in every pub and bar, I could feel the damp on the walls, I was braced for unexpected power cuts. No WhatsApp messages or Facebook alerts for these characters - the book totally immerses you in a world where illicit liaisons were reliant on landline phonecalls, even having some change for the phone box. So complete is this evocation of the recent past that it became increasingly easy for me, as a contemporary reader, to turn off my phone, shut my laptop and go back to the early 1970s - how hard I found it to put the book down suggests I wanted to stay there too...

But of course the real story here, beyond the setting and the supporting cast, is that of love in all its many forms: idealised, platonic, lustful, doomed, familial, illicit, forbidden and destructive; love of a person, a place, a thing; and the most potent love of all, that which endures despite everything else. Is there anything that can be more dramatic, ecstatic or tragic than the fallout from such diverse, unplanned, unique loves?

I must also highlight the author's uncanny ability to say more in a sentence than some writers do in a paragraph, or even a page. You know that concept of le mot juste? Well Sadie has that nailed. Example, you say? Well, here's one character (I won't say who, for fear of spoilers) describing their partner's feelings for them: "Whose love was like someone completing a task they had set themselves." It's perfect, isn't it? You know exactly how person A sees B's love for them, how B sees it, and the sad resignation and defeat it all evokes in A. All from one line, twelve words, sixteen syllables. That's all it takes, if you can write with the economy, concision and accuracy of the prose on display here.

The bottom line: supremely well-written tale of love, lust, lies and liaisons, set against a beautifully-realised evocation of early 70s theatreland, and the best book I've read in an absolute age.

Since everything online is rated these days: ★★★★★★