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The Rotters' Club

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The Rotters' Club

By: Jonathan Coe
Narrated by: Nicholas Burns
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Unforgettably funny and painfully honest, Jonathan Coe's tale of Benjamin Trotter and his friends' coming of age during the 1970s is a heartfelt celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up.

Featuring, among other things, IRA bombs, prog rock, punk rock, bad poetry, first love, love on the side, prefects, detention, a few bottles of Blue Nun, lots of brown wallpaper, industrial strife, and divine intervention in the form of a pair of swimming trunks.

Set against the backdrop of the decade's class struggles, tragic and riotous by turns, packed with thwarted romance and furtive sex, The Rotters' Club is for anyone who ever experienced adolescence the hard way.

 Coming of Age Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Fiction Heartfelt

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Critic reviews

Wonderful storytelling (Paul Merton)
A book to cherish, a book to reread, a book to buy for all your friends
Very funny... a compulsive and gripping read. Coe has achieved that rare feat: a novel stuffed with characters you really care for
One of those sweeping, ambitious yet hugely readable, moving and richly comic novels that you find all too rarely in English fiction ... a masterpiece
Very funny ... a compulsive and gripping read. Coe has achieved that rare feat: a novel stuffed with characters you really care for
All stars
Most relevant

Quite possibly the worst Brummie accents this side of peaky blinders! Well to be honest
non-existent which is a shame as it sounds as though it was set in Tunbridge Wells. The cultural references were interesting; having grown up around the same time and in Birmingham they were quite loaded but in places seemed a little over done. story was good; a bit soapy but enjoyable nonetheless. off to try the next installment. . .

potty mouth Adrian mole?

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This novel is a must and will give listeners and readers great satisfaction and much pleasure. Coe sets his novel in the Birmingham of the 1970s. He captures the historical times, its social, cultural and political tapestry, and the mixed group of teenagers trying to make sense of themselves in the midst of it all nestled in their school for the elite. This has its limitations. Whilst Coe details social diversity in the world of work, it is largely absent in education save for there being one black student at his school and one the son of a trade union official. Those students from state schools less advantaged do not appear, even though using the same buses and bus stops that he refers to many times. Coe’s school world is, therefore, partial. Odd when it would have been exactly those who would have seen their parents’ working lives frequently disrupted by strikes and the family income hit. It is a point to be made, not to slate the book. That said, Coe writes with freedom, mixing his narrative styles. He surprises and delights, as well as managing a wonderful sensitivity relating to a terrorist outrage, yet pulling no punches. There are many, many laughs, things to wince at and to applaud. Do not feel that you have to know Birmingham or the details of what the ‘seventies’ were like; he gives you all you need to know without losing sight of his characters and their growth. You will find your reactions to the characters flexing through the novel, which for me makes for greater interest. You simply do not want to leave these characters. The book-ending sections (front and back) are more than intriguing and heralds rewards in the sequel – ‘The Closed Circle’. This is already listened to with the third novel in the run -‘Middle England’ - waiting to be listened to. As someone who grew up and worked in the exact areas in which the book is set, it all reads true (painfully at times) – from filing documents by the light of hurricane lamps in a bank in 1973 during the power cuts, to walking a girl home at night, under the gaze of one of the characters in this book keeping watch from a darkened front-room! This audio-book is convincingly performed and extremely well read. Listen to it and you will be committed to the wonderful trilogy.

A Roller-Coaster Through the Seventies

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I enjoyed this book overall, there were some terrific laugh out loud moments, plus some poignant ones. I think it was too long and some chapters just seemed to ramble uncontrollably and tediously (I realise this was part of the characterisation in some instances!) but it needed some severe editing. Enjoyable though and I will try some further Jonathan Coe novels.

A good romp, but...

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A well observed and poignant reflection on the seventies from the viewpoint of several young protagonists.

Well observed

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A brilliant set of tales from people growing up in the 1970s. Full of emotion, humour and tragedy, this is a book that will live with you for years.

Superb from start to finish

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