Barbarians review Tim Glencross's lively, parochial debut

Tim Glencross captures the north London elite at work and play but his first novel may baffle those beyond Islington's borders

The title of Tim Glencross's debut novel comes from Matthew Arnold's well-known assertion that English society can be divided into three types barbarians, philistines and the populace, barbarians being the ruling class. Glencross, who worked as a shadow minister's researcher and speechwriter before turning his hand to fiction, focuses his novel on a particular section of the ruling class, namely the Islington-dwelling intelligentsia.

The novel details the intriguing web of interconnected lives surrounding one family, that of publisher Sherard Howe, his feminist writer wife, Daphne Depree, their son, Henry, and their semi-adopted daughter, Afua a rising star in the Labour party.

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