Tim Lott: When We Were Rich [2020] paperback

The brilliant new novel from the author of The Last Summer of the Water Strider

'A sharp and very funny portrait of a brash era which is also a surprisingly tender take on flawed masculinity.' Sarah Hughes, i paper

'What a terrific novel - wickedly sharp, wildly entertaining - I was gripped from start to finish. With its twisty plots and interwoven characters it paints a vivid portrait of a crucial decade. It's laugh-out-loud funny, too. And with property porn thrown in, what's not to like' Deborah Moggach

Millennium Eve and six people gather on a London rooftop. Recently married, Frankie Blue watches with his wife, Veronica, as the sky above the Thames explodes into a kaleidoscope of light. His childhood companion, Colin, ineptly flirts with Roxy, an unlikely first date, while another old friend, Nodge, newly 'out', hides his insecurities from his waspish boyfriend.

New Labour are at their zenith. The economy booms, awash with cheap credit. The arrival of the smartphone heralds the sudden and vast expansion of social media. Mass immigration from Eastern Europe leave many unsettled while religious extremism threatens violent conflict.

An estate agent in a property boom, Frankie is focused simply on getting rich. But can he survive the coming crash? And what will become of his friends - and his marriage - as they are scoured by the winds of change?

When We Were Rich finds the characters introduced in Tim Lott's award-winning 1999 debut, White City Blue, struggling to make sense of a new era. Sad, shocking and often hilarious, it is an acutely observed novel of all our lives, set during what was for some a golden time - and for others a nightmare, from which we are yet to wake up.

'Wickedly funny and deeply humane. I loved this book' Sadie Jones

'Tim Lott revisits the years between millennium fever and the financial crisis, and brings this already long-lost era back to life in a novel every bit as evocative and compelling as we would expect from this prodigiously gifted author' Jonathan Coe

Praise for The Last Summer of the Water Strider:

'I was very moved by The Last Summer of the Water Strider, which is both exquisitely specific to time and place and universal in its examination of humanity, grief and the bizarre prisons that people build for themselves - and one another. Funny, fascinating, mysterious and provocative' Sadie Jones, author of The Outcast

'Great storytelling and superb characterisation. Very few writers can evoke quintessential Englishness in its myriad forms like Tim Lott. I loved it' Irvine Welsh

'Lott is excellent when it comes to the psychology of a grieving adolescent' Observer