Caledonian Road
Sweeping ... A novel this broad has to move quickly, and depend on speech to deliver key details. O’Hagan’s dialogue can feel stilted and unnatural ... A rich, moving attempt to listen to the swell of human life, but O’Hagan occasionally falls into the same trap as his protagonist.
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While O’Hagan’s novel has funny bits, it is fundamentally glum, befitting the time and place of its writing ... Intended as social criticism, it somewhat falls down as fiction. Snappy dialogue can’t rescue a number of characters from sounding like types.
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It’s an addictively enjoyable yarn; a state-of-the-nation social novel with the swagger and bling of an airport bestseller and an insider’s grasp on the nuances of high culture. But this bustling, boisterous burlesque has the sour undertow of despair ... This is rollicking fiction lifted from on-the-ground fact, the novel rekitted as a journalistic first draft of history ... O’Hagan falters slightly when he’s running alongside London’s youth, with their fist bumps and shout-outs and full-on happening parties. Elsewhere, his prose is nimble, lively and sure-footed.
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