The Rotters' Club
by Jonathan Coe

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Book Reviews of The Rotters' Club

Book Review: A haunting look
Summary: 5 Stars

In 1973, dreamy Benjamin Trotter is in school with a bunch of his pals, experiencing their first serious interests in girls and ; his sister Lois dreams of exotic lands, and starts dating a "Hairy Guy," Malcolm. As the next few years go by, Lois's life is shattered by a horrifying act, and Benjamin struggles up into adolescence, falling in love with the school flirt and writes as an aspiring journalist. He and the other boys struggle to create and play as rock bands (among the names are "Gandalf's Pikestaff"), write fake letters to the school paper, have their "firsts" with girls, encounter racism and terrorism and begin to grow up.

"Rotters' Club" is hard to summarize, partly because of the wide cast of characters, the complex stories and the somewhat unfinished nature of it. (Coe reassures the reader at the end that there's going to be a sequel) It's a brave author who tackles racism, politics, history, changing senses of what is acceptable, and many other issues; Coe does this, and more. While condemning the IRA bombings in England, he reminds the reader that the British are far from innocent historically; he shows us racism, labor strikes, and the gradual disintegration of the class structure. Against this, he also provides a good look into the minds of adolescents that are struggling up into their adult lives and relationships.

"Rotters' Club" is also incredibly funny. From the rock band names (Tolkien-inspired) to the swimming trunks incident, this book is full of the sort of hilarious things that happen in real life. When swim trunks are forgotten, the boy has to swim naked; when that boy roughhouses in the pool, he is forced to stand on the diving board... from which he is quite visible from the roads nearby. And the bigoted satire letters from the fictional "old soldier" Arthur Pusey-Hamilton are insanely funny.

Benjamin is a perpetual innocent, no matter what he sees, hears or does; his romantic turn of mind is almost childlike in its lack of guile or bluster. Even a terrorist bomb can't make him hate others, only not understand. (Although he needs to stop writing thirty-page-long sentences about sleeping with Cicely) Lois is haunting as a dreamer in her own right, whose life is upturned by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. All the characters, no matter how dislikable they may seem, are deeper than one would expect. Cicely Boyd, for example, seems like a shallow flirt at first, but gradually we see her respond to Ben.

Coe's writing is slow and careful, giving us plenty of detail into the lives of 1970s British teenagers. His dialogue is well-written, as are the tasteful descriptions of the less-than-pleasant parts (such as the bomb explosion). And his attitude is a mixture of amusement and reminiscence.

All the silly clothes and shifting rock bands aside, "Rotters' Club" is a perfect balance of nostalgia fiction and realism, comedy and drama. It's a masterful book, and not one to be missed.

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