There's a bit of a fantasy-style conceit right at the beginning of this book - all the characters are children killed in a V2 rocket strike on south London, and the book tells the stories how their lives would have turned out if they'd lived. The first chapter dwells on the rocket strike, the physics and chemistry, and some Achilles-and-the-tortoise style paradoxes about time. After that it's a much more conventional set of interconnected stories, checking in with the same characters over the years from 1949 to 2009. Since they are all working class children, it's a sort of history-survey of what happened to working class people over this period. Some rise out of their class, some try to rise with it, some rise and then fall. One is typesetter in Fleet Street; another becomes a shyster property developer. Tragedies befall them, but in the sort of random way that they do in real life, not as a carefully contrived story arc.
It's beautifully written, and it's hard not to care about the characters, even the nastier ones. Lots about the music business, because one of the characters is an almost-successful singer in LA before she goes back to south London and becomes a music teacher.
Really enjoyable and profound at the same time, and I will read more by him.
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