Fallout (Long-Listed For Impac Dublin Literary Award 2016)

Description: **** As read on BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime ****Luke is a young playwright: intense, magnetic and hungry for experience. Fleeing a disastrous upbringing in the North East he arrives in London and shares a flat with Paul, an aspiring producer, and beautiful, fiery Leigh. The three of them set up a radical theatre company, their friendship forged in rehearsal rooms above pubs, candlelit power cuts, and smoky late-night parties, part of a thrilling new generation of writers, directors and rising voices. When Nina, a fragile actress, strays towards their group, Luke recognises a damaged soul and the balance between the friends is threatened. Luke is torn between loyalty, desire and his own painful past, until everything he values, even the promise of the future, is in danger. Suddenly the fallout threatens to be immense.

Review: "An intoxicating and immersive read... It is a fraught and compelling novel; one that replays itself uncomfortably in the mind long after it is finished" -- Lucy Atkins * Sunday Times * "Intense... Ms Jones is unflinching as she plots the course of fallout with no shelter, of wounded lives undone by desperation in love and art" -- Carmela Ciuraru * New York Times * "Written with a precision and a level of descriptive subtlety that puts her up there with our foremost novelists. I can't help but feel that if she had been born Samuel Jones she would already be considered on a par with the Barneses and McEwans of this parish... Fallout is crafted with a pared-back delicacy and attention to detail that shows an author determined to do better with every sentence. And at the same time, there is an intensity of focus, a merciless yet empathetic gaze directed towards each of the main characters that ensures we care deeply about each of them" -- Elizabeth Day * Observer * "Hugely enjoyable... Fallout is both deliciously gobble-able and carefully constructed... A thoroughly pleasurable read" -- Holly Williams * Independent on Sunday * "An intelligent, pacy tale... Every summer needs a One Day-style read; this book is a contender for that crown" -- Anne Ashworth * The Times *



Prizes: Long-listed for IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2016 (UK).

Author Biography: Sadie Jones is a novelist and screenwriter. Her first novel, The Outcast (`Devastatingly good', Daily Mail) won the Costa First Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. It was also a Richard and Judy Summer Reads number one bestseller and adapted for BBC Television. Her second novel, Small Wars (`Outstanding', The Times; `One of the best books about the English at war ever', Joel Morris), was published in 2009, and longlisted for the Orange Prize. Her third, in 2012, was The Uninvited Guests (`A shimmering comedy of manners and disturbing commentary on class... a brilliant novel', Ann Patchett) followed by Fallout in 2014 (`Intoxicating and immersive', The Sunday Times).

Four young people in 1970s' London fuelled by love, betrayal and creative ambition