When We Were Rich

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The brilliant new novel from the author ofThe Last Summer of the Water Strider

A sharp and very funny portrait of a brash era which is also a surprisingly tender take on flawed masculinity.Sarah Hughes, i paper

What a terrific novel - wickedly sharp, wildly entertaining - I was gripped from start to finish. With its twisty plots and interwoven characters it paints a vivid portrait of a crucial decade. It's laugh-out-loud funny, too. And with property porn thrown in, what's not to likeDeborah Moggach

MillenniumEve and six people gather on a London rooftop.Recentlymarried, Frankie Blue watches with his wife, Veronica, as the sky above the Thames explodes into a kaleidoscope of light. His childhood companion, Colin, ineptly flirts with Roxy, an unlikely first date, while another old friend, Nodge, newly out, hides his insecurities from his waspish boyfriend.

New Labour are at their zenith.The economy booms, awash with cheap credit.The arrival of thesmartphone heralds the sudden and vast expansion of social media.Mass immigration from Eastern Europe leave many unsettled while religious extremism threatens violent conflict.

An estate agent in a property boom, Frankie is focused simply on getting rich. But can he survive the coming crash And what will becomeof his friends - andhis marriage - as they are scoured by the winds of change

When We Were Richfinds the characters introduced in Tim Lott'saward-winning1999 debut,White City Blue,struggling to make sense of a new era. Sad, shocking and often hilarious, it is an acutely observed novel of all our lives, set during what was for some a golden time - and for others a nightmare, from which we are yet to wake up.

Wickedly funny and deeply humane. I loved this bookSadie Jones

Tim Lott revisits the years between millennium fever and the financial crisis, and brings this already long-lost era back to life in a novel every bit as evocative and compelling as we would expect from this prodigiously gifted authorJonathan Coe

Praise forThe Last Summer of the Water Strider:

'I was very moved byThe Last Summer of the Water Strider, which is bothexquisitely specificto time and place anduniversal in its examination of humanity, griefand the bizarre prisons that people build for themselves - and one another.Funny, fascinating, mysterious and provocative'Sadie Jones, author ofThe Outcast

'Great storytelling and superb characterisation.Very few writers can evoke quintessential Englishness in its myriad forms like Tim Lott. I loved it'Irvine Welsh

'Lott is excellentwhen it comes to the psychology of a grieving adolescent'Observer

Reviews

A sharp and very funny portrait of a brash era which is also a surprisingly tender take on flawed masculinity

-- Sarah Hughes, i paper
What a terrific novelwickedly sharp, wildly entertainingI was gripped from start to finish. With its twisty plots and interwoven characters it paints a vivid portrait of a crucial decade. It's laugh-out-loud funny, too. And with property porn thrown in, what's not to like -- Deborah Moggach
Wickedly funny and deeply humane. I loved this book -- Sadie Jones
Tim Lott revisits the years between millennium fever and the financial crisis, and brings this already long-lost era back to life in a novel every bit as evocative and compelling as we would expect from this prodigiously gifted author -- Jonathan Coe
Lott delivers many hilarious and sad scenes of life in a long-term relationship. He also explores the poignancy and fragility of male friendships, in a manner reminiscent of Graham Swifts Last Orders. . . [He is,] crucially, careful to linger over moral difficulty and vulnerability rather than evading it * TLS *
Lotts carefully observed period piece captures the mood of an era that now seems like a lost world * Daily Mail *

Author Bio

Tim Lott is the author of seven novels and a memoir, The Scent of Dried Roses, which won the PEN/J.R. Ackerley Prize. White City Blue won the Whitbread First Novel Award and his young adult book Fearless was shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Book Award. Tim lives with his family in north-west London. Visit his website www.timlott.co.uk