Synopses & Reviews
Sadie Jones, the award winning, bestselling author of
The Uninvited Guests and
The Outcast, explores the theater of love, the politics of theater, and the love of writing in this deeply romantic story about a young playwright in 1970s London.
Leaving behind an emotionally disastrous childhood in a provincial northern town, budding playwright Luke Kanowski begins a new life in London that includes Paul Driscoll, an aspiring producer who will become his best friend, and Leigh Radley, Paul's girlfriend. Talented and ambitious, the trio found a small theater company that enjoys unexpected early success. Then, one fateful evening, Luke meets Nina Jacobs, a dynamic and emotionally damaged actress he cannot forget, even after she drifts into a marriage with a manipulative theater producer.
As Luke becomes a highly sought after playwright, he stumbles in love, caught in two triangles where love requited and unrequited, friendship, and art will clash with terrible consequences for all involved.
Fallout is an elegantly crafted novel whose characters struggle to escape the various cataclysms of their respective pasts. Falling in love convinces us we are the pawns of the gods; Fallout brings us firmly into the psyche of romantic love—its sickness and its ecstasy.
Review
“An intoxicating, deeply romantic novel of theater, love, and friendship…With both microscopic precision and operatic emotions, Sadie Jones perfectly captures the exhilaration of the young and the talented as they find their footing in both art and love.” < i=""> Booklist <> (starred review)
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“Joness intricate, complex plot, sympathetically drawn characters, and authentic depictions of damaged genius make an unassailable claim for the power of a writers detailed observation in the face of formula fiction.” < i=""> Library Journal <>
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“Engrossing…Joness talent emerges most in the absorbing plot, which convincingly shows how friends can be torn apart by lust and ambition.” < i=""> Publishers Weekly <>
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“Sadie Joness intense new novel is set in Londons thriving theater scene in the 1970s, though the real drama occurs offstage… Ms. Jones is unflinching as she plots the course of fallout with no shelter, of wounded lives undone by desperation in love and art.” < i=""> The New York Times < i/="">
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“[A] wonderful read. Surprising depth of character, accidents of fate that feel like life, and emotional FALLOUT that heralds new maturity, make this a very satisfying novel.” Not Another Book Review (Blog)
Review
“The strength of Fallout is the insistent thread of hope that runs through all the humiliation and bad behavior. The result is…a fuller, more emotionally satisfying story.” < i=""> The Wall Street Journal <>
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“Emotionally charged.” < i=""> Glamour <>
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“An intoxicating and immersive read... It is a fraught and compelling novel; one that replays itself uncomfortably in the mind long after it is finished.” Lucy Atkins, < i=""> The Sunday Times <>
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“Beautifully written... An intense and absorbing story.” Deirdre O'Brien, < i=""> Sunday Mirror <>
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“An intelligent, pacy tale of pretty, talented people, striving for recognition but held back by their past…. Every summer needs a One Day-style read; this book is a contender for that crown.” Anne Ashworth, < i=""> The Times <>
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“On a par with the Barneses and McEwans of this parish… Joness gift - like all great writers - is to leave us wanting so desperately to believe that the story will continue without us once the scenery has been cleared away.” Elizabeth Day, < i=""> Observer <>
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“Jones highlights beautifully the energetic, naive, cheap red-wine fug of the Seventies start-up, and its decadent antithesis, the emptiness of fatally compromised success.” Catherine Taylor, < i="">< i=""> Sunday Telegraph <>
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“Fallout is both deliciously gobble-able and carefully constructed.” Holly Williams, < i=""> Independent on Sunday <>
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“This absorbing and romantic novel about love, art and the importance of being true to yourself will draw you in and keep you there until the very last page.” Mernie Gilmore, < i=""> Express <>
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“[Fallout] cements her reputation as a writer in the style of William Boyd; able to take on a variety of styles and mould them to her own voice.” < i=""> Red <>
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“Sadie Jones has an unerring ability to delve into the depths of characters and reveal both their strengths and their weaknesses.” Di Speirs in < i=""> Psychologies <>
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“An enthralling tale of lust, ambition and friendship.” < i=""> Hello! <>
Review
“Londons theatre scene, in the nineteen-sixties and seventies, was surely full of characters like this novels central four...The novel is at its best when the characters quietly seek an audience for their pleasures, their pains, and the ‘more permanent wounds of their longer lives waiting, undiscovered.” New Yorker
Review
“Jones is unflinching as she plots the course of fallout with no shelter, of wounded lives undone by desperation in love and art.” < i=""> The New York Times <>
Review
“The novel is at its best when the characters quietly seek an audience for their pleasures, their pains, and the ‘more permanent wounds of their longer lives waiting, undiscovered.” New Yorker
Synopsis
Four young people in 1970s London race toward the future, fueled by love, betrayal, and creative ambition.Luke Kanowski is a young playwright— intense, magnetic, and eager for life. He escapes a disastrous upbringing in the northeast and, arriving in London, meets Paul Driscoll, an aspiring producer, and the beautiful, fiery Leigh Radley, the woman Paul loves.
The three set up a radical theater company, living and working together; a romantic connection forged in candlelit rehearsal rooms during power cuts and smoky late-night parties in Chelsea's run-down flats. The gritty rebellion of pub theater is fighting for its place against a West End dominated by racy revue shows and the giants of twentieth-century drama.
Nina Jacobs is a fragile actress, bullied by her mother and in thrall to a controlling producer. When Luke meets Nina, he recognizes a soul in danger—but how much must he risk to save her?
Everything he has fought for—loyalty, friendship, art—is drawn into the heat of their collision. As Luke ricochets between honesty and deceit, the promise of the future and his own painful past, the fallout threatens to be immense.
About the Author
Sadie Jones is the author of four novels, including The Outcast, winner of the Costa First Novel Award in Great Britain and a finalist for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize/Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, Small Wars, and the bestselling The Uninvited Guests. She lives in London.