Summary of The Rotters’ Club
“The Rotters’ Club” follows three teenage schoolboys – Ben Trotter, Doug Anderson and Philip Chase – as they grow up in Birmingham during the 1970s. The novel explores their love lives, musical interests and the wider societal events that shaped Britain during the decade, including rock music, labour disputes, and IRA bombings.
Reasons to read The Rotters’ Club
“The Rotters’ Club” is an engaging and satirical novel about the pains and glories of growing up, set in 1970s Britain. Jonathan Coe later published two sequels featuring the same characters and their families: “The Closed Circle”, set in the early 2000s, and “Middle England”, set during the 2010s amid the rise of populism and the build-up to Brexit (the latter won the Costa Book Award for Novel and the European Book Prize in 2019). Together, the trilogy offers an entertaining portrait of British society from the 1970s to the 2010s. Other notable works by Coe include “What a Carve Up!” and “Expo 58”.
Setting: Birmingham (England, UK)
The novel is inspired by the author’s own school days at King Edward’s School, a boys’ public school in Edgbaston, Birmingham (J.R.R. Tolkien also attended the school). The sequels shift to other settings, including London and Shropshire.
Original title: The Rotters’ Club
Year of publication: 2001
Nr of pages: 416
