Master of the merry-go-round

Sprawling, teeming with people and flooded with an almost malevolent brilliance, this book is the literary equivalent of some vast conurbation. As with a conurbation, it is difficult to identify the heart – and heart here means not merely centre but humanity. Trapped, as in one of Mark Gertler’s most famous pictures, on a constantly accelerating roundabout, the characters all seem to be in imminent danger of being hurled into oblivion by the centrifugal force of a powerfully churning imagination.

Two of the most important of these characters are a father and son. Digby, once the heir to a company that rivalled Wedgwood in the manufacture of pottery, is now an antique crock among the antique crockery that still remains to him as a reminder of past affluence. Unwise investments will soon see even his present modest means dwindle to almost nothing. Theo, in his forties and a brilliant trumpeter in an unsuccessful jazz band, sponges off his father while unjustly suspecting him of having murdered his mother.