Jim, Crace’s latest novel, All That Follows, marks a deliberate change from past form.
Jim, Crace’s latest novel, All That Fol lows, marks a deliberate change from past form. Gone are the musical, metaphorical sentences and the fanciful narratives, and in come realism, character and dialogue. It’s not all completely new, in that the novel is set partly in 2024, and partly in Bush’s Texas in 2006; but then again the 2024 of this novel is merely the present day with even more governmental nannying and some unlikely-sounding ‘telescreens’ (which sound like a view of the future as conceived in the 1950s).
The protagonist is Leonard Lessing — one cannot call him ‘hero’, for reasons that will become clear — an indecisive and timid Englishman who turns 50 during the novel. Leonard is a well-regarded saxophonist currently taking an injury-enforced break.
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