Ordinary People

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019

Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2019

Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2019

South London, 2008. Two couples find themselves at a moment of reckoning, on the brink of acceptance or revolution.

Melissa has a new baby and doesn't want to let it change her but, in the crooked walls of a narrow Victorian terrace, she begins to disappear. Michael, growing daily more accustomed to his commute, still loves Melissa but can't quite get close enough to her to stay faithful.

Meanwhile out in the suburbs, Stephanie is happy with Damian and their three children, but the death of Damian's father has thrown him into crisis - or is it something, or someone, else?

Are they all just in the wrong place? Are any of them prepared to take the leap?

Set against the backdrop of Barack Obama's historic election victory, Ordinary People is an intimate, immersive study of identity and parenthood, sex and grief, friendship and aging, and the fragile architecture of love. With its distinctive prose and irresistible soundtrack, it is the story of our lives, and those moments that threaten to unravel us.