Book review

Capital

by John Lanchester

Reviewed by Alison Prince

John Lanchester’s novel about London, simply called Capital and now serialised on BBC television, is clever, hard-hitting and often very funny. It peeps, if you’ll forgive the pun, at Pepys Road, a London street with residents ranging from the Pakistani family running the local shop to Smitty, a performance artist. Bogdan the builder is in fact Zbigniew Tomascewski from Poland, but doesn’t say so. Elderly, ascerbic Petunia, who is irritated rather than dismayed when told she has cancer, is seen steadily through to the end. Shahid is in prison, but doesn’t understand why. Mill the policeman never manages to find someone called Kwame Lyons, who pays immigrant workers in slightly under-value cash for the cheques they receive at work. The wildly mingled flow of people from all nations through the houses of Pepys Road is brilliantly done, as is the overall picture of traditional London houses falling into very different forms of use. Casual, laid-back, making no judgement, it lays open this mixed and crammed community with the dexterity of a surgeon’s scalpel, but is never indifferent. Each of the characters who wander, stride or struggle through these pages comes over as utterly real. Lanchester’s writing is a joy, laconic, funny and deeply human, like Dostoevsky with the boring bits left out. Deeply moving and human, Capital is also funny and hugely enjoyable.

Capital by John Lanchester. Faber paperback £7,99. ISBN 978-0-571-23462-2