The book blurb gives most of the details of what happens in Doxology. Joe, Pam and Daniel meet and form a band, Pam and Daniel have a baby (Flora) and Joe’s music career takes off. We follow the three of them (four when Flora arrives) until 11 September 2001 when tragedy strikes both New York and the trio on the same day. Getting to this point is effectively the first third of the book and is, in truth, much like many of the other novels that track groups of friends living in New York. I feel like I have read a large number of these novels (it’s a great city full of interesting characters, so it is hardly surprising so many authors have set a book there).

After 9/11, the focus gradually changes. Flora grows up and we alternate between her story and that of her parents/grandparents, with Flora gradually coming to the fore. Once Flora joins the activists fighting for ecological conservation and/or against Donald Trump, she comes to dominate the story.

I think it probably helps to be American (which I am not) when reading this book. Firstly, I found myself (in the UK) having to look up a large number of words that turned out to start their definition by saying “(North American)…”. They were new words for me, but would be perfectly normal, I imagine, for any North American reading the book. The story is also very much embedded in North American culture referencing a lot of trade names etc. that will be very familiar to American readers but less so to those in other countries (I didn’t know what a BoltBus is until I read this book). Finally, once the story turns political as it follows Flora, then a good understanding of American politics would be very useful, especially an awareness of some of the issues raised and people involved during Trump’s ultimately successful campaign. For a non-American reader, some of this becomes a bit confusing. During Flora’s political activity, the story telling takes a bit of a back seat with both narrative and conversational passages making political points. This is the “elegiac takedown of today’s political climate” referred to in the blurb.

Reading this book felt very much like a game of two halves. In the first part, the story of friends in New York dominates. This fades in the second part, although not completely, to be dominated by commentary on American politics. There is a lot about green issues and a quite a bit about Trump (or, at least, about people trying to stop him from becoming president).

Despite my lack of knowledge of things North American, this was an enjoyable book to read. Zink seems to have a penchant for mathematically impossible descriptions (“exponentially more wonderful”, for example, which I am told is a thing but which I have never personally heard anyone say - and also she at one point says that Joe can play more instruments than Joe, Pam and Daniel can added together, which I guess is for humour but which made my headache for a few minutes), but she also writes in a very readable way. The narratives switches focus from one protagonist to another and the third person narration seems to switch in style subtly to reflect the person whose viewpoint we are currently seeing (and I think this explains some of the slightly unusual narrative phrases that I had to read a few times, such as those above).

Overall, an interesting book to read although I am not quite sure how well some of it works outside of the United States.

My thanks to 4th Estate and William Collins for an ARC via NetGalley. I will be interested to see what reviews from North Americans have to say when the book is more widely available.

Three people meet by chance to start a punk band and two of them get married and have a child together.