by Jonathan Coe
Oh, come on, Sophie, don’t look that way. It was a beautiful story. It was full of nice things: friendships, jokes, good experiences, love. It wasn’t all doom and gloom.
Yes. Yes, I know. It’s not that, really. It’s just that it was so long ago. They were all so young. And Benjamin and my mother went through so much.
But look at her now. She’s doing fine. Things could hardly be better for her. And for us.
I know. That’s all true.
And it even has a happy ending.
Except that it doesn’t feel like the ending, to me.
But stories never end, do they? Not really. All you can do is choose a moment to end on. One out of many. And what a moment you found! And Sophie nodded slowly, and said:
Yes. He was lucky, wasn’t he, to have felt that way? Lucky Uncle Benjamin! To have known happiness like that, and to have held on to it, even for a moment.
And lucky us, said Patrick. To be able to share in it, still, after all this time! Then Sophie rallied, and saw that he was right, and after catching the eye of the wine waiter she turned back to Patrick and smiled her widest smile, full of hope and anticipation. And she said:
All right, then: now it’s your turn.
Author’s Note
There will be a sequel to The Rotters’ Club, entitled The Closed Circle, resuming the story in the late 1990s.
Acknowledgements
The following books proved informative, helpful or inspiring in writing this novel: Chris Upton, A History of Birmingham (Phillimore, 1993); Chris Mullin, Error of Judgment: The Truth about the Birmingham Pub Bombings (Poolbeg Press, 1997); Peter L. Edmead, The Divisive Decade: A History of Caribbean Immigration to Birmingham in the 1950s (Birmingham Library Services, 1999); Martin Walker, The National Front (Fontana, 1977); Mike Cronin (editor), The Failure of British Fascism: The Far Right and the Fight for Political Recognition (Macmillan, 1996); John Tyndall, The Eleventh Hour: A Call for British Rebirth (Albion Press, 1988); David Widgery, Beating Time (Chatto and Windus, 1986); Julie Burchill, I Knew I Was Right (Heinemann, 1998); Michael Edwardes, Back from the Brink: An Apocalyptic Experience (Collins, 1983); Jonathan Wood, Wheels of Misfortune: The Rise and Fall of the British Motor Industry (Sidgwick and Jackson, 1988); Bernie Passingham and Danny Connor, Ford Shop Stewards on Industrial Democracy (Institute for Workers’ Control, 1977); Jack Dromey and Graham Taylor, Grunwick: The Workers’ Story (Lawrence and Wishart, 1978); Michael Dummett (chairman), The Death of Blair Peach: The Supplementary Report of the Unofficial Committee of Enquiry (National Council for Civil Liberties, 1980); David Petrow, The Bitter Years: The Invasion and Occupation of Denmark and Norway, April 1940—May 1945 (Hodder and Stoughton, 1975).
Section 1 of “The Chick and the Hairy Guy” contains quotations from genuine lonely hearts advertisements in Sounds (1973). Section 3 of “The Very Maws of Doom” contains quotations from the magazines Woman (1976) and Take a Break (1996). Section 18 contains quotations from 101 Ways to Improve Your Word Power, by Hugh Enfield (The Dickens Press, 1967), Word Power from the Reader’s Digest (Reader’s Digest, 1967), Twenty-five Magic Steps to Word Power, by Dr. Wilfred Funk (Fawcett Publications, 1959) and Word Power: Talk your Way to Life Leadership, by Vernon Howard (Prentice-Hall, 1958).
Extract from Watership Down by Richard Adams. Extract from “Burnt Norton” by T. S. Eliot, from Collected Poems 1909–1962 by T. S. Eliot. Extract from “Sonnet for Zulfikar Ghose” by B. S. Johnson, from Poems 1 by B. S. Johnson.
Excerpts from “I Get a Kick Out of You” by Cole Porter, copyright © 1934 (renewed) by Warner Bros. Inc. All rights reserved. Excerpt from “The Remembering” by Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Alan White, Rick Wakeman, copyright © 1973 (renewed) by Topographic Music, Ltd. (PRS). All rights administered by WB Music Corp. (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, FL 33014.
The Rotters’ Club, by Hatfield and the North, released in 1975, is available on Virgin Records (CDV2030). The section of this novel called “Green Coaster” was inspired by the song of the same name by The High Llamas, from their album Snowbug ( V2 Records, VVR1008972).
Thanks for general help, advice and encouragement must also go to: Philippe Auclair, Daniel Coe, Janet and Roger Coe, Laura Cumming, Paul Daintry, Helena Dela, Charles Drazin, Artemis Gause-Stamboulopoulou, Simon Gidney, Tanja Graf, Andrew Hodgkiss, Tony Lacey, Barèt Magarian, Janine McKeown, Ivor Meredith, Tony Peake, Pernilla Pearce, Nicholas Pearson, Guy Perry, Ralph Pite, Pip Pyle, Nicholas Royle, Dave Stewart, Richard Temple and staff at the Modern Records Centre at Warwick University, Tony Trott, Adama Ulrich, Francis Wheen, Conrad Williams and Gaby Wood.
Special thanks to Carlo Feltrinelli and his family for their generous hospitality in Gargnano, Brescia Province, where a large part of The Rotters’ Club was written.
JONATHAN COE
The Rotters’ Club
Jonathan Coe has received the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger, the Prix Médicis Etranger, and, for The Rotters’ Club, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for the most original comic writing. He lives in London.
ALSO BY JONATHAN COE
The Accidental Woman
A Touch of Love
The Dwarves of Death
The Winshaw Legacy, or What a Carve Up!
The House of Sleep
FIRST VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES EDITION, FEBRUARY 2003
Copyright © 2001 by Jonathan Coe
Illustration copyright © 2001 by Peter Frame
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Contemporaries
and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Owing to limitations of space, all acknowledgments for permission to
reprint previously published material may be found at the end of the book.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Coe, Jonathan.
The Rotters’ Club / by Jonathan Coe.—1st American ed.
p. cm.
Contents: The chick and the hairy guy—The very maws of doom—Green coaster.
1. Birmingham (England)—Fiction. 2. Male friendship—Fiction.
3. Teenage boys—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6053.O26 R68 2002
823’.914—dc21
2001042523
www.vintagebooks.com
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-42927-8
v3.0