Book description
In the first year of the 20th Century, a young Englishman returns
home from the Boer War. Disillusioned with Empire and fearful for the
soul of Albion, he sets out on a pilgrimage into the West Country,
determined to identify the key elements of the English character that
they may be forever preserved.
In the present day, a young London entrepreneur, owner of the
'cultural consultancy' Authenticity , defines his contemporaries
through their consumer choices with bewildering accuracy, wallows in
money and contemplates his growing sense of dissatisfaction.
His father, meanwhile, a junior minister in a failing government, is
sent to Africa to deal with the continent's latest tin pot despot. He
is as confident of success as he is ambitious of what that success
will mean for his career.
Unfailingly relevant, politically astute, moving and funny,
Jerusalem is a loving portrait of Englishness as it never was, isn't
now and, hopefully, never will be.
Patrick Neate is the author of four previous novels:
Musungu Jim
and the Great Chief Tuloko
, which won a Betty Trask Award,
Twelve Bar Blues
, which won the 2001 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award,
The London
Pigeon Wars
, and
City of Tiny Lights
. His nonfiction includes
Where You're At
, which won the NBCC Award for Criticism in the USA.
