This is 64
Joseph Connolly has written a typically anarchic and entertaining novel of one George Reilly, who is aged just 19 in 1964 and living in a crummy bedsit in Kilburn with a much put-upon girlfriend, Dorothy. London has started to swing and unlike Philip Larkin, it is not too late for him —it is only just starting. The story is mostly told through stream-of-consciousness as the various characters reflect upon their (generally unsatisfactory) lot in life. The action moves between 1964 and 2009, when Reilly is aged 64, and he looks back upon his gilded youth. He has just retired wealthy and successful from his business, and is trenchantly un-PC and cynical and controlling towards life and his family, and seems to have a rather selective view of his own past. The George Reilly of 1964 is a selfish, unpleasant young man, obsessed with The Beatles, who bullies and treats Dorothy with awful disdain.
The 1960s are immersed in superb historical detail, and the milieu of the times, with people, their conversations and culture, seems just about spot on; those splendid times of youthful hedonism are brought to life once more. The narrative technique is well executed, though in a long novel it can occasionally drag as we go through and around in great detail the minutiae of the characters’ desires, frustrations and angst with the world. There is a surprise ending, but one which the alert reader may see flagged well in advance, and there are lots of references to Beatles songs and lyrics hidden in the text.
