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Book review: Us, by David Nicholls

Narrator exposes whole cloth of self delusion as family ties unravel in David Nicholls' latest novel

Reading Time:5 minutes
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Illustration: Sarene Chan

David Nicholls' fourth novel, , arrives burdened with expectation largely thanks to , his third novel.

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A funny, closely observed tale of late 20th-century middle-class manners, sold by the bookshop, thanks to a credible but satisfyingly on-off love story, and an unexpected and wonderfully moving conclusion. is, in certain ways, reduxed - not exactly "Another One Day", but laid down in the cellar to age. At its heart is another finely wrought but wonky relationship - only instead of following a love story that takes ages and pages to get going, we view one from its final throes.

The result is a book that is both different and more of the same. A major contrast is in narration. Whereas shuttled elegantly between the feckless Dexter and the sensible Emma, is confined to one voice. This belongs to Douglas Petersen, a 54-year-old biochemist who feels happily married to Connie, with one child, 17-year-old Albie. The premise that whets our appetite for the novel as a whole is quickly presented.

Douglas wakes in the middle of the night thinking someone has broken into his spacious house in the English countryside. Returning to bed, he hardly takes in what his wife is saying. "I didn't say anything about burglars. I said I think our marriage has run its course. Douglas, I think I want to leave you."

The line articulates a very English, indeed a very Nicholls, set-up: polite, modest and amusing on the surface, but devastating underneath. This potential is dramatised throughout the remainder of in the form of a travelogue. The Petersens are embarking on a Grand Tour of Europe to bid farewell to their son, who is leaving home to study photography at art school.
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This journey - from France via Belgium and the Netherlands to Italy and finally to Spain - becomes a last-chance saloon for Douglas, who resolves to win Connie back and to repair his dismal relationship with Albie.

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