Capital: A Novel (Paperback)

Description

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"A vibrant piece of fiction, pulsating with events and emotions…Seems destined to be read a hundred years from now." —Martin Rubin, Los Angeles Times

Each house on Pepys Road, an ordinary street in London, has seen its fair share of first steps and last breaths, and plenty of laughter in between. But each of the street’s residents—a rich banker and his shopaholic wife, a soccer prodigy from Senegal, Pakistani shop owners, a dying old woman and her graffiti-artist son—is receiving a menacing postcard with a simple message: "We Want What You Have." Who is behind this? What do they really want? In Capital, John Lanchester ("an elegant and wonderfully witty writer"—New York Times) delivers a warm and compassionate novel that captures the anxieties of our time—property values going up, fortunes going down, a potential terrorist around every corner—with an unforgettable cast of characters.

About the Author

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John Lanchester is the best-selling author of the novels The Debt to Pleasure, Capital, and The Wall, among others other works of fiction and nonfiction. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages and his books have won the Hawthornden Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Prize, the E. M. Forster Award, and been longlisted for the Booker Prize. A regular contributor to the London Review of Books and The New Yorker, he lives in London.

Praise For…

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Not only immensely enjoyable but important, too.
— Claire Messud, author of The Burning Girl

Lanchester [is] a brainy, pleasure-loving polymath [and] reading Capital is like getting a crash course in the transformation of British mores and class distinctions.

— Liesl Schillinger - New York Times Book Review

Full of spectacular comedy—and menace.
— Ron Charles - Washington Post

Perfect fireside reading that captures the Trollopean ‘way we live now’ without putting on grand airs.
— James Wolcott - Vanity Fair

Lanchester employs a bird’s-eye view that sweeps in for dazzling close-ups, then swoops out again, until you see not only the entirety of Pepys Road, but the city, the world—and the economy that’s crumbling under the weight of everyone’s aspirations.
— Laura Lippman - New York Magazine

Searching, expert, on the money. I loved it.
— Joseph O’Neill, author of Netherland

Capital comes in a great tradition of novels which are filled with the news of now, in which the intricacies of the present moment are noticed with clarity and relish and then brilliantly dramatized. It is clear that its characters, its wisdom, and the scope and range of its sympathy, will fascinate readers into the far future.

— Cólm Toibín, author of Brooklyn

Fresh, astutely observed, and a lot of fun.
— Sebastian Smee - Boston Globe

A big, funny, sure-footed novel…rich in observation and warm in spirit.
— Dan Kois - Slate

As enrapturing as it is psychologically acute…Capital portrays an authentic slice of contemporary life on the eve of change in a way that recalls Franzen—with a welcome touch of wry humor.

— Trisha Ping - Bookpage

Brilliant.
— Lizzie Skurnick - NPR Books