Description
Coup d’Etat (Collins/Fontana, 1985, Athenaeum in USA, Best Seller Bell in Greek translation)
Selected by Chris Patten in the Sunday Telegraph as ‘the novel which shows the best grasp of political life’.
‘Many causes are lost in the course of the novel: on the barricades, in the bedroom, on the battlefield, but never in the heart. John Harvey cares very much for his people.He writes with feeling but without sentimentality, in sorrow as well as anger, without the distortion of melodrama. There is great strength in this moving and extremely readable novel, and great hope.’ Times
‘What a treat . . . stylish, politically interesting and immensely readable.’ NINA BAWDEN, Daily Telegraph
‘Tolstoyan . . . a wide-ranging, detailed and sympathetic portrayal of a whole society.’ ANTHONY THWAITE, Observer
‘Impressive, compelling . . . it is a fine work . . . tense, exciting and significant.’ ALLAN MASSIE, Scotsman
‘Impressive story-telling . . . The unerring quality of the writing makes it an enormously compelling book.’ Standard
‘A remarkably sensitive and observant political novel. A synopsis does no justice to the painstaking cleverness of his imagination,and his dexterous mixing of actual incidents with fictional narrative.’ Canberra Times
‘John Harvey has shown us what the novel can and should be in our time. He undertook an enormous task, and has constructed a novel of accomplished craftsmanship to carry it out. It is moving and harrowing: and it is sound.’ DAVID HOLBROOK, Authenticity and the Novel
