There are those who like to mortise a plot, carefully and neatly, and there are those who are content simply to bang it together with panel pins and a tube or two of Gripfill. Jonathan Coe is undoubtedly the craftsman - a counter-sinking, dove-tailing, professional-finishing kind of writer. But he does get away with the occasional bodge. The framing device for his new novel, The Rotters' Club, for example, seems to be held together with two blobs of mastic, intended to provide a solid fixing onto a sequel.

LRB 10 May 2001 | PDF Download