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A review by ridgewaygirl
Capital by John Lanchester
4.0
When the residents of Pepys Road in London begin receiving postcards that say only, "We want what you have" they're either bemused or dismiss the cards as junk mail. Pepys Road is filled with houses initially sold as starter homes for the aspirational white collar workers of a century ago, but London is not what it once was and those houses are now worth millions. From the elderly lady who has lived all her life in number 42 and whose kitchen was last renovated in 1958, to the banking executive and his resentful wife, the denizens of Pepys Road are a diverse lot. But as 2008 grinds on, the economic landscape is changing.
John Lanchester has the ability to make each of his characters, from the sympathetic to the venal, compelling. Capital has a large cast of characters, but all of them read as real people, complex and interesting. There's Quentina, an asylum-seeker from Zimbabwe who is illegally working as a traffic warden, determined to keep moving forward even as she longs to be able to return to the country she loves. There's Smitty, a Banksy-style artist who loves his nan, even if he doesn't visit very often, and Petunia, who had a difficult and controlling husband and who had expected to live a more expansive life after his death, but who instead is simply continuing in the same restricted routine she has always kept. And there's Zbigniew, the Polish builder who prides himself on the quality of his work and who dreams of returning to Poland with his savings, to give his father the retirement he deserves. There are so many characters, but Lanchester keeps them all moving forward, making the reader care about all of them.
This is a superlatively well-written book. It's a joy to read a substantial novel with both heart and plot.
John Lanchester has the ability to make each of his characters, from the sympathetic to the venal, compelling. Capital has a large cast of characters, but all of them read as real people, complex and interesting. There's Quentina, an asylum-seeker from Zimbabwe who is illegally working as a traffic warden, determined to keep moving forward even as she longs to be able to return to the country she loves. There's Smitty, a Banksy-style artist who loves his nan, even if he doesn't visit very often, and Petunia, who had a difficult and controlling husband and who had expected to live a more expansive life after his death, but who instead is simply continuing in the same restricted routine she has always kept. And there's Zbigniew, the Polish builder who prides himself on the quality of his work and who dreams of returning to Poland with his savings, to give his father the retirement he deserves. There are so many characters, but Lanchester keeps them all moving forward, making the reader care about all of them.
This is a superlatively well-written book. It's a joy to read a substantial novel with both heart and plot.