Jonathan Coe
Jonathan Coe
Jonathan Coeis an English novelist and writer. His work has an underlying preoccupation with political issues, although this serious engagement is often expressed comically in the form of satire. For example, What a Carve Up! reworks the plot of an old 1960s spoof horror film of the same name. It is set within the "carve up" of the UK's resources which some feel was carried out by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative governments of the 1980s. One claim to fame that Coe...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 August 1961
Thatcherism has become bigger than she ever was.
I'm trying to write a nonfiction book at the moment, slot it in between the novels, and it really is like wading through quicksand compared to writing fiction.
Everybody is excited by his experience and enthusiasm. Everybody is impressed.
They were written in the early '90s when I was strapped for cash.
I sometimes think that we fiction writers lag behind nonfiction counterparts in adventurousness, willingness to tackle forgotten areas of history but... we get there in the end.
So no, I'm pleased if it's been influential for many readers, but at the time I didn't even know that it was going to have any readers.
Luckily, in my case, I have managed, by writing, to do the one thing that I always wanted to do.
So it was primarily a desire to write about that period in one's life rather than that period in history or in British culture or whatever.
A biographer has to get as emotionally close to his/her subject as possible: otherwise the writing won't come to life at all.
It's only a drawback in the States, where most people seem to have no real interest in other countries and the notion of a novel which might offer insight into life in the UK doesn't seem to appeal very widely.
Also I had financial worries because it took four years to write and we were living off my wife's income all that time, which wasn't very great.
I have to constantly rein in my nostalgia for the 1970s, in case it takes me over and I become one of those grumpy old men who just talks about how much better life was when he was a kid.
But we are entitled to look for continuity in politics.
I don't know if England lags behind the States or is ahead of the States. We've finished with the '70s retro chic revival, we've done the '80s retro-chic revival and on to the '90s.