ONE OF US

A drama of family and politics, power and comeuppance shines an unflattering light on the upper echelons of British society.

Although a freestanding novel, Day’s latest is a sequel to The Party (2017), picking up on the tangle of connections linking a set of upper- and middle-class friends, relatives and colleagues, several of them unhappy, unappealing, or both. The core relationship is between smooth, successful, aristocratic Ben Fitzmaurice—now the government’s energy secretary—and middle-class loner Martin Gilmour, his old school pal, who has long and silently nursed an attraction to his popular buddy. Their relationship was severed at Ben’s 40th birthday party, seven years ago, and has only resumed now, at the funeral of Ben’s addict sister, Fliss, because Martin has been invited by Ben’s wife, Serena. In a cast that tends toward the stereotypical, other characters include eco-warrior Cosima, one of Ben’s four children, and his repulsive, lecherous financier, Andrew Jarvis. The mystery surrounding Fliss’ drowning—was it suicide? an accident?—is the central enigma, but Day is more interested in the psychologies and inner dialogues of her characters. Martin, having loyally protected Ben after a fatal car crash during their student days, has finally had his fill of Fitzmaurice assumptions and manipulations and is “motivated not by a need to belong, but by a need to bring them down. The whole bloody lot of them.” And once in receipt of the necessary tools, he’s in a position to threaten Ben’s campaign to be party leader and potentially prime minister. There’s a familiarity to this general scenario (think of the movie Saltburn or Alan Hollinghurst’s novels). Some of it is intentional—the prime minister is described in terms reminiscent of Boris Johnson—and some of it not. The chilling self-absorption of the upper classes and their political and personal modes have been charted often. Day’s approach is brightly readable but not exactly original.

Once more unto the British class system.