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What a Carve Up! - a hilarious 1980s political satire by Jonathan Coebr>br>It is the 1980s and the Winshaw family are getting richer and crueller by the year: br>br>Newspaper-columnist Hilary gets thousands for telling it like it isn''t; Henry''s turning hospitals into car parks; Roddy''s selling art in return for sex; down on the farm Dorothy''s squeezing every last pound from her livestock; Thomas is making a killing on the stock exchange; and Mark is selling arms to dictators.br>br>But once their hapless biographer Michael Owen starts investigating the family''s trail of greed, corruption and immoral doings, the time growing ripe for the Winshaws to receive their comeuppance. . . br>br>This wickedly funny take on life under the Thatcher government was the winner of the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prizebr>br>br>''A sustained feat of humour, suspense and polemic, full of twists and ironies'' Hilary Mantel, Sunday Timesbr>br>''A riveting social satire on the chattering and all-powerful upper classes'' Time Outbr>br>''Big, hilarious, intricate, furious, moving'' Guardianbr>br>Jonathan Coe''s novels are filled with biting social commentary, moving and astute observations of life and hilarious set pieces that have made him one of the most popular writers of his generation. His other titles, The Accidental Woman, A Touch of Love, The Rotters'' Club (winner of the Everyman Wodehouse prize), The Closed Circle, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, The House of Sleep (winner of the1998 Prix Medicis Etranger), and The Rain Before it Falls, are all available in Penguin paperback.>
About the author
Jonathan Coe was born in Birmingham in 1961. He is the award-winning, bestselling author of fifteen novels, including What a Carve Up!, The Rotters’ Club, Middle England and, most recently, The Proof of My Innocence. He has won the Costa Novel Award, the Prix du Livre Européen, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Prix Médicis Étranger and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, among many others. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into twenty-two languages. Jonathan Coe lives in London.
Summary
Inexplicably, Michael is commissioned to write the family history of the Winshaws, an upper class Yorkshire clan whose members have a finger in every establishment pie. But as a murderous maniac stalks the family, Michael realizes that his favourite film is coming true.
Report
A sustained feat of humour, suspense and polemic, full of twists and ironies Hilary Mantel
