Jonathan Coe

Novelist and writer Jonathan Coe is our guest this week. He is the author of several novels which your host holds dear, including What A Carve Up! and The Rotter's Club and his latest book, Bournville, is published this week.

A master of social & political satires, state-of-the-nation sagas and generation-spanning comic narratives, Jonathan often plays with the form and, as we find out, before he discovered influential writers such as B.S Johnson and Flann O'Brien he was introduced to experimental comic prose via Spike Milligan's 1963 novel Puckoon.

His enthusiasm for comedy as a youth drove him to seek out more Milligan as well as the likes of David Nobbs and he built up a sizeable library of comic novels, sitcom tie-in books and comedy books in general. He talks to Tyler about the comedy and humour he grew up with, especially the work of Milligan, and how it informed his way of looking at the world.

'Bournville' will be published by Viking on 3rd November.

Read a review of it here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/30/bournville-by-jonathan-coe-review-hugely-impressive-state-of-the-nation-tale