Fallout review Sadie Jones at the peak of her powers

Sadie Jones's novel about the emotional entanglements of a playwright trying to make his name in 70s London is a tour de force

The blurb on the front cover of the proof version of Fallout, the new novel by Sadie Jones, informs us that it is a book "of stinging intensity and emotional depth". So far, so commercial and, having read it, I'm sure Fallout will sell by the bucketload. It certainly deserves to.

While Jones's fourth novel is indeed both of these things, it is also, crucially, incredibly well written. In fact, Fallout which is set against the backdrop of a 1970s London radical theatre group is written with a precision and a level of descriptive subtlety that puts her up there with our foremost novelists. I can't help but feel that if she had been born Samuel Jones she would already be considered on a par with the Barneses and McEwans of this parish.

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