The blurb on the front cover of the proof version of Fallout, the new novel by Sadie Jones, informs us that it is a book "of stinging intensity and emotional depth". So far, so commercial - and, having read it, I'm sure Fallout will sell by the bucketload. It certainly deserves to.
Though Jones' fourth novel is indeed both of these things, it is also, crucially, incredibly well written. In fact, Fallout - which is set against the backdrop of a 1970s London radical theatre group - is written with a precision and a level of descriptive subtlety that puts her up there with Britain's 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 Julian Barnes and Ian McEwan.
The thing about Jones is that she's not afraid to tell a cracking good story. Her novels, including her debut, The Outcast, for which she won the Costa first novel prize, and the excellent Small Wars, are defined by their tightness of plot and pace, by the depth of understanding she shows for her characters. As a result, it can be easy to overlook her stylistic talent because she refuses to draw attention to it at the cost of our narrative involvement.
Fallout is no exception: it traces the intertwined lives of up-and-coming playwright Luke Kanowski, who comes to London determined to write a hit and to escape his unhappy upbringing in the northeast of England, and Nina Jacobs, a brittle, beautiful young actress with the worst kind of stage mother. Into this mix is thrown Paul, an aspiring theatre producer, and his girlfriend, Leigh.
Like all of Jones' previous books, the narrative is wholly engrossing but this novel shows a writer at the peak of her powers, displaying an innate capacity to convey the entirety of a period, a place or a feeling in a single sentence, throwing the words almost casually on to the page. Sometimes, you find yourself rereading a passage simply for the joy of squeezing more out of it.
