The Dice Was Loaded from the Start

'Tremendous. An actually funny comic novel as propulsive as any thriller. With savage wit, integrity and tenderness, Annand exposes the complacent nostalgia of a sandwich generation, offering both an elegy and, most impressively, a hope for change. The Dice Was Loaded from the Start is the most fun I've had all year' MATT GREENE, author of The Definitions'David Annand's brilliant comedy of manners is a Howards End for contemporary London . . . Funny, truthful and bracing' NEIL STEWART, author of Test Kitchen'The Dice Was Loaded from the Start is a sharp, witty and seductive read. Its grudges, passions, and aspirations simmer away, much like the tense inter-generational battleground at its centre. Young and old should read it and remind themselves that life is far too short to fall out, or flirt, with the neighbours' JUSTIN MYERS, author of The Glorious DeadIt's the summer of 2018. Max Anderson, in his early forties, has been living in Berlin for the past decade failing to become the filmmaker he was once tipped to be. But his wife's career is taking off, and with a generous relocation package on offer they've moved with their kids back to London. Not to the Hackney flat share that he left ten years ago but, somewhat bemusedly, into a rented home on a handsome tree-lined street in north London. Pemberton Place is populated by couples who have lived there since the seventies, who bought their houses for a song, raised their families, and now sit on a relative fortune. The Boomers, as Max thinks of them, are cultured and urbane, full of shared stories and storied pasts, and immediately take Max under their wing. Both flattered and amused, Max joins most evenings as they gather to drink wine and reminisce on glories past. Max is both insider and outsider, participant and observer: a position in which he feels disconcertingly comfortable.Then eight politically mischievous Millennials move in to an empty house on the street and upend this cosy equilibrium. With the Boomers in their crosshairs they make Pemberton Place a cause celebre, the front line in the generational battle of the haves and have nots. As the Millennials steadily up the ante and the Boomers try to assert their authority, Max - the street's sole Gen Xer - realises that everyone, eventually, has to pick a side. With wit and a propulsive pace, David Annand spins the battleground of the housing crisis into a brilliantly crafted study in intergenerational difference. The Dice Was Loaded from the Start asks: what does the good life look like? And how might we make meaning in an exhausted world?

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