Author(s): Patrick Neate

Fiction

In the first year of the 20th Century, a young Englishman returns home from the Boer War. Disillusioned with Empire and fearful for the soul of Albion, he sets out on a pilgrimage into the West Country, determined to identify the key elements of the English character that they may be forever preserved. In the present day, a young London entrepreneur, owner of the 'cultural consultancy' Authenticity, defines his contemporaries through their consumer choices with bewildering accuracy, wallows in money and contemplates his growing sense of dissatisfaction. His father, meanwhile, a junior minister in a failing government, is sent to Africa to deal with the continent's latest tin pot despot. He is as confident of success as he is ambitious of what that success will mean for his career. Unfailingly relevant, politically astute, moving and funny, "Jerusalem" is a loving portrait of Englishness as it never was, isn't now and, hopefully, never will be.