May 2021. London.
Campbell Flynn - art historian and celebrity intellectual - is entering the empire of middle age. Fuelled by an appetite for admiration and the finer things, controversy and novelty, he doesn't take people half as seriously as they take themselves. Which will prove the first of his huge mistakes.
The second? Milo Mangasha, his beguiling and provocative student. Milo inhabits a more precarious world, has experiences and ideas which excite his teacher. He also has a plan.
Over the course of an incendiary year, a web of crimes and secrets and scandals will be revealed, and Campbell Flynn may not be able to protect himself from the shattering exposure of all his privilege really involves. But then, he always knew: when his life came tumbling down, it would occur in public.
'A brilliant state-of-the-nation novel that pulls down the facades of high society, and knocks over the "good liberal" house-of-cards.
O'Hagan is not only a peerless chronicler of our times, but has other gifts - of generosity, humour and tenderness - which make this novel an utter joy to read.' Monica Ali
