Review

This is a novel about Britain at the end of the 20th century. Set over one year, the book begins in an MP's farmhouse in Herefordshire where Rebecca is about to give birth.

It is New Year's Eve 1997. In attendance are a female cat burglar, a plump lorry driver, a crippled boy and his father, and a number of former laboratory animals. The explanation for this bizarre gathering lies in the fateful and often surreal events of the previous 12 months.

Pears juggles these people’s stories, drawing them together through the central themes of identity and home, the social evolution of this country and also, in often toe-curlingly repulsive detail, the various methods by which we exploit animals in the interests of expediency. This is Pears's third novel, and his language in it is supple and vigorous, the tone buoyant, the pace even.

There is startling imagery: Martha the cat burglar who grew up learning to wrestle with her older twin brothers, Charles and Paul, named as a modern farmer's salute to the classical fighting twins Castor and Pollux. The family treat was to enter a blacked-out chamber and fight in pitch darkness to test courage.

Meanwhile, in Oxford at the laboratories of the organology department, a pair of quarrelling foreign scientists research the effects of affection on test-animals under the smarmy auspices of Dr Bone and his sinister arms-dealing backers, the Al Shalir brothers.

With clubbing, cult-yoga, drugs, religion, animal transportation, and the difficulties of protecting a severely crippled albino child on a Mancunian housing estate from too many pharmaceuticals and too much bureaucratic concern, the scope of this novel is far-reaching.

That it succeeds in combining all elements and thrusting them ever forwards with humour and affection is testament to Pears's bold vision and large talent.

Rafaella Barker

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