I happened upon this book, as I was looking at new fiction in the Mayville library. I knew nothing about the author, thought it was probably set in Washington and admired the reviewers on the back cover, all very positive about the book. So I took it out, started and was immediately drawn into it, to London by the way, not Washington, D.C.
It takes place in later 2008, just as the the world economies are blowing up. Like many modern novels, this one picks a fancy residential street in London and we follow the lives of the inhabitants and their 'people.' We see the Yount's, Rodger and Arabella, a filthy rich banker and his cronies, riding high making millions, but not for long. There's also a football prodigy, Freddy Yanos, from Senegal, a burgeoning star on the football scene, renting a house. Petunia Howe has been living on Pepys Street her entire life and is dying. Next door, running a store, are the requistie Muslims in London, the Kamals, husband wife, two children and the husband's two brothers, who help him run the shop. We also meet a famous artist, grandson of Petunia, who plays a small part. The other major players are from the working class, Quentina Mfkesi, a illegal refugee from Zimbabwe, Zbigniew, a Polish immigrant, who works on the interiors of the houses on Pepys Street, and Matya, a Hungarian college graduate, forced to be a nanny to survive.
Knowing that the novel is set as Wall Street is about the to fall, we are not looking for a happy ending and indeed, there is none. But the journey taken by the above, as the scramble to make a living, to find love, to survive life's bumps and bruises is worth it. We don't feel too bad when the Yount's fall; Arabella, the wife, is a monster, lives to spend money, to decorate, with both a maid and a nanny, for both week and weekends. She does not take it well. Freddy, unfortunately, breaks a leg in his first match, losing the game he loves. Don't feel too bad...he walks away with millions from insurance. Petunia dies, a slow painful death, watched over by her daughter, who inherits the house and promptly sells it for millions, though not without guilt. Quentina is picked up for being an 'illegal', put in a waiting house, hopes and waits, and as the novel ends, she's still hoping and waiting. In some ways, we like her the most...nothing discourages her though it should. And, typically, one of the Kamal brothers is taken by the M-5, as they think, from his web postings, that he's a terrorist. It ends up being a friend who used his computer but he spends three weeks in interrogation until things are straightened out. Only Zbigniew and Matya end up happy, falling in love, finding an apartment to share, making plans for the future. We wonder what happens to these people as the novel ends, Perhaps a sequel?
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