London, the week before Christmas, 2007. Seven wintry days to track the lives of seven characters: a hedge fund manager trying to bring off the biggest trade of his career; a professional footballer recently arrived from Poland; a young lawyer with little work and too much time to speculate; a student who has been led astray by Islamist theory; a hack book-reviewer; a schoolboy hooked on skunk and reality TV; and a Tube driver whose Circle Line train joins these and countless other lives together in a daily loop.
With daring skill, the novel pieces together the complex patterns and crossings of modern urban life, and the group is forced, one by one, to confront the true nature of the world they inhabit. Sweeping, satirical, Dickensian in scope, A Week in December is a thrilling state of the nation novel from a master of literary fiction.
'A compelling tale of contemporary London' Guardian
'Hilarious... The satire is so vicious that at times it's like reading a Tom Sharpe novel' Daily Telegraph
'Perfectly constructed...a pleasure to read' Sunday Telegraph
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Faulks's most vivid character is the odious John Veals, a hedge-fund manager, who relishes all the money that he makes and the power that he quietly exerts... Veals is brilliantly insidious... A thoughtful page-turner ... The handsome sunset is heavily, and rightly, weighed down by dark clouds. - The Times
During times of momentous change, men of letters are driven to produce works that fictionalise the state of the nation, linking individuals with historic events. The 19th century gave us Thackeray's Vanity Fair, Dickens's Our Mutual Friend and Trollope's The Way We Live Now; the 21st has given us Sebastian Faulks's A Week in December - Sunday Times
This vast novel, well-plotted and gripping throughout, is the first that Sebastian Faulks has set in our time... the ambition and scope of the book are to be applauded. The conclusion is suitably nail-biting and, pleasingly, love triumphs. Sebastian Faulks has probably got another best-seller on his hands. - Spectator
A portrayal of modern London that is both richly entertaining and highly rewarding. Faulks has come as close as anyone to completing the jigsaw that is this crazy, fascinating city of ours. - Evening Standard
A vicious satire on modern life - Daily Telegraph
a zeitgeisty novel about the effects of greed, celebrity, the electronic age and the fragmentation of urban life. It's gripping stuff [...] Sweeping and satirical, A Week in December is a thrilling state-of-the-nation novel. - Cath Kidson Magazine
The novel is cleverly plotted and eminently readable... - Sunday Times
Faulks never writes a hackneyed or lazy sentence, polishing each with care - Independent on Sunday
Page-turning portrait of noughties' London. - Woman & Home
One can't mistake Faulk's ambition, and his take on the contemporary life is never less than readable - Sunday Herald
This intriguing book, shaped by modern manners and foibles as much as actions and outcomes, takes the reader on a whistle-stop tour of society. - Waterstone's Book Quarterly
The author cleverly brings together the two things that are troubling the nation most - the collapse of the financial system and the threat of terrorism. The book is compelling. - Evening Standard, Christmas round up
Sebastian Faulks was born and brought up in Newbury, Berkshire. He worked in journalism before starting to write books. He is best known for the French trilogy, The Girl at the Lion d'Or, Birdsong and CharlotteGray (1989-1997) and is also the author of a triple biography, The Fatal Englishman (1996); a small book of literary parodies, Pistache (2006); and the novels HumanTraces (2005) and Engleby (2007). He lives in London with his wife and their three children.
