The Proof of My Innocence, by Jonathan Coe - book review

What will we think of Jonathan Coe’s novel, The Proof of my Innocence, in 30 years’ time? And does it matter? Like Anthony Horowitz’s Alan Conway/Atticus Pünd/Susan Ryeland series, Coe offers us a novel that seeks to subvert its own form, but while Horowitz gives us smooth entertainment, Coe comes up with something altogether more freewheeling which is somehow both lighter and heavier. Lighter - because he breaks so many rules that you’re not always sure how to approach the material. Heavier - because Coe is busy asking questions of the reader and doesn’t hang around waiting for our answers.
Supposedly, this is all about Liz Truss. The novel opens with her poised to become prime minister; its last pages quote from her resignation speech. Coe is furious that her brand of Conservatism (which we’ll a little sloppily label as ‘popcon’) could have propelled her to power and he’s keen to emphasise what he considers that particular ideology’s illegitimacy: it can win office only by being dishonest about its intentions and its victory, however short-lived, shows the rottenness of a society that pits old against young, puts a stop to the limited social mobility that was possible during the post-war consensus and which, moreover, can no longer agree on what constitutes a fact.
Some of these themes have been previously explored by Coe and others. What’s different here is that Coe shifts through three literary genres: cosy crime, dark academia and autofiction. The requirements of each genre mean that although the over-arching plot does make perfect sense, there are inconsistencies that can trip up the reader. These inconsistencies don’t restrict themselves to facts: we spend quite some time trying to work out whether Coe is sympathetic to each of these genres and what that sympathy might mean.
Take cosy crime, for example. Coe takes the notion of the eccentric detective and really runs with it; he criticises familiar elements such as secret passageways. The supposed writer is doing cosy crime because she thinks it will be easy. So where there are elements that don’t necessarily land, we can’t necessarily tell whether Coe’s doing it on purpose.
He’s on firmer ground when we get to dark academia, and maybe this is where his loyalty lies, as he’s covered 1980s excess before. A theme of dark academia is that higher education was so much better when people (students, lecturers) could wander around reading novels all day: a character who has supposedly come to come to study medicine but spends his time in the philosophy, history or English literature lecture halls is one of the heroes of the novel. Social circles at 1980s Cambridge were determined on class lines, but this means that although we can seethe at the exclusion of the novel’s main protagonists from the ranks of those who will, forty years later, be the thinkers behind Truss, we don’t really get to see the popconners up close.
And the reaction of the normal folk is to find their niche, away from the corridors of power. They might become a vicar and undertake minor good works, or set up an ethical business. What they don’t do is find ways to seriously oppose those with power. Even the great scoop that someone thinks they’ve got, had it been published, would have done very little to change the political narrative. Truss was brought down by the markets, not by her associations with Tufton Street which were widely known about even if they were not always transparently reported.
I wonder whether Coe believes that he should himself have done more. He appears here, lightly disguised, as a Cambridge student and a contemporary of the popconners. And when he isn’t encouraging us to think about the potency of literary fashion, and having his characters be furious at the success of Martin Amis (in particular, Money) he’s asking: what should, what could a novelist do about it all? Is it right to pander to fashion, or should a writer aim for legacy? And where does truth fit in with all this, anyhow?
Those are big questions, and at times things can get a bit overwhelming. Coe is a master of the set piece, and feeds us a few; at times we’re wondering whether we’re missing too many of the references. Is this a reference to Women in Love? Is that a reference to Don’t Look Now? (Yes, it was.) You don’t have to notice them all, in fact you don’t need to notice any of them. But to get the most out of this novel you need to be prepared to let Coe take you in numerous directions. There’s some cosy crime and some laughs at Liz Truss’s expense, sure, but - unlike your standard mystery writer - Coe wants you to do some work. The state of the nation depends on it.

Quite a complicated plot set at different times, but with mostly the same characters , at different stages in their lives. The book is told from different viewpoints . At the heart, is friendship, between 3 people who met at Cambridge university, the people they associated with and the political beliefs of the 80s when they were at university which have had long reaching effects on British society and culture. The daughters of two of this group of 3 also meet up and develop a friendship up until and in the aftermath of the death of Christopher (one of the original group). They become interested in finding out more about what happened and who was involved, but Phyll also wants to write a book.
This book is intricate and has plenty to say about the political climate in the 80s as well as in the period that Liz Truss was prime minister and around the time of the death of the late Queen. The characterizations are good and conversations and events believable, certainly there is satire and humour but also plenty of twists in the plot along the way .It kept my interest throughout, though I`ll definately be trying to sort out some of the events in my mind in the coming days.
Thanks to Net Galley for a great read

As Britain mourns the Queen and Liz Truss tries to bring the country out of its post-Covid malaise, a Right-Wing think tank is holding a conference in the Cotswolds. There an opponent of the group is murdered. Meanwhile, recent graduate Phyl is contemplating her future and thinks about being a novelist.
It is so hard to describe this book and that is the joy of it. At heart is a polemic against extreme Right-Wing views but it's wrapped up in a murder mystery that is written in three literary forms. Except that isn't quite it either! Whatever the truth is doesn't matter, it's just absolute classic Coe. The satire is both sharp and subtle in places - too many instances to mention but I did love the fact that one strand hangs on knowledge of 'Friends' episodes. Very clever and supremely entertaining

I really enjoy a mystery and have also enjoyed several 'book within a book's previously so was hopeful for this latest offering from Coe, especially after loving his Bournville last year. I very much liked the blossoming friendship between Phyl and Rash and the humorous Prudence. The setting and the reference to the older characters' lives at university was right up my street.
I understand why several characters needed to share initials but this did make the mystery particularly confusing and harder to read than I would have liked.
All in all this is an enjoyable read and a compelling mystery.

Reading a review this weekend of a new TV series set in the 80s, I found myself agreeing with the writer's point that to portray the 80s, you need to stir in a good deal of the 70s. Coe would I think agree, at least one of the characters in his novel would, asking as she does when the 80s began? (The answer isn't 1 January 1980).

The 80s 'beginning' is code in this discussion for the onset of the individualistic, consensus-breaking phase in UK national life which has often been a theme, or lurking in the background, of Coe's novels. It's particularly appropriate here since The Proof of my Innocence focusses on what one may hope is the end, or the beginning of the end, of that worldview, with a bunch of highly unattractive and ideologically bent conservatives meeting in a rural hotel to set their world to rights. This takes place as the Queen (THE Queen: sorry, but that's what she'll always be even for this anti-monarchist) dies, and Liz Truss is appointed to her catastrophic period as PM. (When I reviewed Coe's last novel, Bournville, which appeared just after that time and had a key episode around most of the significant points of post war British history, I noted it was a shame that publication timetables meant he had missed that one - he does though take it in here, most notably The Queue, is a sequence that could almost be a coda to the earlier book).

Coe is though slightly playing games with the reader: the conference section is in a part of the book that also, or perhaps primarily, explores the conventions and settings of the cosy crime genre (the out-of-this-world setting, the eccentric detective, the unlikely murder) as subsequent sections do dark academia and autofiction (in a pleasingly meta way). They're not parodies or pastiches of those genres, still less I think meant as straight examples, but those styles do influence the events and characters. So after the gruesome country house section introduces a foodie detective who's about to retire, we get a memoir of 80s Cambridge which touches on a cabal who meet behind locked doors (and I think a walk on part by Coe himself?) and then a jointly narrated section by the two young women whose story frames this book, inspired by autofiction.

What these three interrelated stories are all about though is unpicking the tragic story of a novelist, Peter Cockerel, who committed suicide, also in the 1980s. He's a shadowy figure whose books have been given a posthumous revival by an academic, also an attendee at that conference. Cockerill's voice gives Coe an opportunity to explore a conservative worldview and vision at one remove, or two, perhaps, with something of the same distancing effect that MR James might use in a ghost: here is something I found, in the last quarter of the previous century, in an old manuscript; and here is the trouble it got me into. That distancing is I think important here as it creates a separation between what is at least a fairly human view of conservatism and the grotesque cult that it now seems to be. Perhaps that's a true difference of perhaps it's just nostalgia. In either case Coe demonstrates, and comments on, the difference, and suggests how it perhaps arose (that moment when the 80s began!) but he is wise enough to not try to diagnose it in detail.

Rather, the point is illustrated, in a variety of settings, throughout the book in encounters with lift controls, overheard chat on a train, and even a character who, unwittingly, sings in his sleep. What goes on in our heads, and our ability to empathise with what goes on own others' minds, is important here. Some things should be shared and others, not. Both individuality and the collective experience matter, but the boundaries between the two can shift and that is not a light matter.

In a book that features murder (perhaps more than once), suicide, and other deaths, it's hardly surprising that bereavement and how we cope with it, or don't, is also a theme. Death is of course one of the great internal/ external events in life so is a suitable part of the book's subject.

As always with Coe's books, I found The Proof of my Innocence very entertaining and funny, but it also made me think hard about appearances and reality (as I said, he plays some games). As the husband of a vicar, and someone who has far too many books, I also took the opening scenes, in a book infested rectory, very personally, and wondered if, indeed, Coe doesn't have uncanny abilities to see into others' minds...

I recently took a train in the UK, the first time for several years, seeing I don't live there. There was an exceedingly irritating security announcement in all the stations and trains every few minutes ending in "See it. Say it. Sorted". Apparently it irritated Jonathan Coe as well (to be honest, I can't imagine anyone not being irritated by it) as it is a recurring theme throughout the book. He manages to turn the irritation into humour, and indeed the whole book is immensely funny, as we have been led to expect from him. There are, of course, the inevitable references to lettuces (the book is set in the brief period of Liz Truss' prime ministership), but that is not overdone.
A particularly enjoyable aspect is that he also has fun with the cosy mystery genre, and indeed pokes fun at the literally world as a whole. I enjoyed the horror of the professional writer at discovering that they were talking to someone writing a novel and the thought that they might start to tell them all about it. He also has some interesting side comments on the process of writing, like a discussion on writing in the present or past tense (or was that meant humorously as well)? He even pokes fun at himself, giving himself a cameo part as a student at Cambridge.
The book is very political. Liz Truss' disastrous term of office is the backdrop and he does an excellent job of exposing the right wing of the Conservative party as being completely out of touch with reality and hungry for power. Of course, he does that in an amusing way too.
There is a lot to like about this book. The only thing I was less enthusiastic about was that I didn't feel he had quite mastered the cosy mystery genre. That's fine though, it means he was more himself, and we could not ask for better than that.
Acknowledgement: Thanks to the publisher for providing an advance review copy (via Netgalley) in return for an honest review.

The Proof of my Innocence is a great blend of political satire, modern mystery and literary parody. Set against the backdrop of Liz Truss's brief premiership and the passing of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, Coe crafts a narrative that is both timely and timeless.

The story follows Phyl, a recent university graduate who, while thinking about her post-uni future, becomes entangled in a web of political intrigue and murder. The author's portrayal of Phyl is both relatable and engaging, capturing the uncertainties of post-university life with authenticity.

One of the novel's standout features is its structural ingenuity. Divided into sections that each pay homage to different literary genres—cosy crime, dark academia, and autofiction—Coe really showcases his versatility. He manages to keep the narrative fresh whilst inviting readers to think about the nature of storytelling itself - all whilst creating an entertaining, 'cosy crime' feel without being too twee! For me it's the perfect balance.

The political commentary is sharp and insightful, offering a critique of contemporary Britain that is humorous and thought-provoking. Coe's depiction of a right-wing think tank's conspiracies provides a chilling reminder of the real-world implications of political extremism.

The Proof of My Innocence is a great blend of genres with compelling characters and incisive social commentary. I'd highly recommend it.

Another topical satire from the pen of Jonathan Coe is always welcome and this one pokes fun at lots of sacred cows: the alt right, Conservative Little Englanders, the Old Etonian brigade, working class kids made good, narcissistic writers, snowflakes, cosy crime, secret societies and more.

It’s beautifully written, fun and Coe plays around delightfully with some of the current writing trends. I don’t know if it’s true but I can imagine him snort-laughing at his typewriter when some new idea for a target comes to him - I hope he does!

With thanks to NetGalley, Penguin and Jonathan Coe for an arc of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book of many strands, ambitious, with flipping over and back. I enjoyed the experience of reading it however, the pulling of everything together felt somewhat disjoined. It's a literature lovers book, no doubt, but decidedly self consciously so - the ending worked well,
Thank you for an opportunity to read - will be posting to goodreads and amazon at a later time.

I was given a copy of The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Jonathan Coe's What a Carve Up! remains a top-notch read. A bitingly intelligent twist of the knife towards the uncaring privileged before 'eat the rich' really reached its zenith (I said post-pandemic, really). I read The House of Sleep (which I'm sure I liked) but didn't quite get through Middle England; the novel meant to encapsulate the Brexit story and continue Coe's searing insight into the state of the British character.

This book started off fairly well, covering a young girl seemingly at a loose end. It was intriguing and very akin to a Coe character. Clever, inquisitive, unsure of what will happen next. We are then invited to meet a guest of the parents with a famous blog and an adopted daughter. The pieces are starting to fall into place. It would be remiss not to mention Friends, the TV show that gets featured as a stop for nostalgia. A side note: I learned the word anemia to represent nostalgia people have for a time when they weren't even born. Excellent.

The action then moves into another style of writing. Away from a girl who is aimless and now the family's guest, he becomes the new character to follow as he attends a conference with several people shrouded in unpleasantness (these people are connected to the extreme Conservative movement behind the Trust premiership).

Then, when an event happens there, we are transported to another twist, that of a memoir written by one of the characters, which is arguably the most interesting part of the story and one that seems to ape Coe's interest in Dark Academia, where characters use words like meretricious garbage and the author explains (interestingly) that life really changed after the first mobile phone call in the UK, in 1985.

The book returns to the beginning in some ways as we return to our narrator from the start, Phyl. We also have Rachida join the mix as they try to solve the riddle of what happened at the conference. The ending, although intelligent, is highly implausible and, while very readable, left me feeling that this book was a mass of ideas strapped down with staples.

Coe is a very able, natural writer. This book was enjoyable in parts but too discombobulated to rank as a classic.

This is my first Jonathon Coe, and I know several people who like him, but much of this felt like "tell me you were a literature academic without telling me you were a literature academic". Thankfully this slab of satirical lit-fic playing at being something else (up to potentially three levels of meta-narrative) is shot through with a very playful sense of humour so the obvious and the potentially arrogant slide by harmlessly. But considering I like the book's central thesis, I was surprised how often I got annoyed by the book.

Its 2022 and the Tory leadership conference is going on when Christopher Swann goes to stay with his old friends. Their daughter Phyl, who recently graduated from a literature degree, is working in Heathrow's thinly disguised Yo! Sushi and gets a little embroiled in Swann's political blogging, as he is off to a big Right Wing Conference to report from the inside - itself a thinly veiled take on the National Conservatism conference. Phyl wonders if she might become a novelist, and considers three genres which she might try her hand at: Cozy Mystery, Dark Academia, and then Auto-fiction. The rest of the story then unfolds in three chunks in those three genres, followed by an epilogue that has its cake and eats it.

I was never not engrossed in the actual narrative, and Coe does seem to privilege his own narrative voice over that of his chosen genres, or indeed the potential writer of those pastiches. There is a suggestion that Phyl is writing these, though the Dark Academia section is also referred to elsewhere as a straight academic memoir (and is a plot point in the cosy mystery). Frankly, the cosy mystery never reads like one, it's much more akin to an unresolved episode of Columbo, and the Auto-Fiction attempts to inhabit the thoughts of two twenty-two-year-old women and never really captures it. Of course, Coe has a getout (dropped in his epilogue), that Phyl was never happy with those versions which is why they are bad genre pastiches, but also that the book she eventually writes eschews all three of them, which means it isn't actually the book we read. A secondary rug pull allows Coe to come back to his main theme of the emotional pull of right-wing conservatism pining for a pre-war British utopia which he compares, cleverly but exhaustingly, to the younger generation's comfort blanket of watching the pre-mobile phone sitcom Friends. Throw in a broad irritation with "See It, Say It, Sorted" which he never gets to work thematically. Luckily the actual story he is telling is lots of fun, if eventually far-fetched, even if its link to the far-right Conservative conference ends up being initially quite tenuous. I enjoyed it, even ploughed through it in places, but it felt designed to discuss, dissect and nit-pick at, which as you can see from above, it does rather successfully. Does that make it good, hmmm.

There is nothing so exciting as a new Jonathan Coe novel because he never writes the same book twice. Of course he wouldn’t write a bog-standard murder mystery…no, we get the story told in three distinctive sub-genre styles with his trademark satire and exploration of modern concerns. I thoroughly enjoyed this – smart, witty and relevant…I thought it was very good indeed.

Classic Coe. State of the Nation, humour, critical, dry and a great perspective of contemporary Britain... with a twist. A play of words turns this into a great what happened, mystery slow burn, woven with laughs and takes on our UK daily do's.

I was sent a copy of The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe to read and review by NetGalley. I have mixed feelings about this novel. It is political, which is fine, and a murder mystery, also fine, but I had a few issues regarding the way it was written. There were different writing styles throughout the book and I have to admit that at times I became rather confused. I decided to just carry on rather than try and work out what was confusing me, as I find looking back is not an easy task when reading a kindle copy rather than a physical book that you can just easily flick back through. The reason for the different styles used becomes clear later in the book but this didn’t really enamour me to it. I found some parts interesting and some parts engaging but on the whole I personally do not think that this novel worked as a whole.

Clever, funny and highly topical. Everything you have come to expect from a Jonathan Coe book. Great twist at the end which I did not see coming

I enjoyed this book although I couldn't decide whether it was crime novel or a satire or a state of the nation epic. Elements of all three and a very entertaining mix. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

This is a book – from an author new to me – that surprised and delighted me. It’s a cleverly constructed, satirical novel focused on far right politics at the time of the disastrous (and very brief) reign of Liz Truss as British prime minister

Phyl has returned home after graduating from university. She doesn’t quite know what to do with her life now. In fact she’s bored and treading water, preparing food for a Japanese restaurant at Heathrow Airport. Perhaps she’ll write a book – but about what, and how would go about constructing it? But luck is on her side, because a friend of her mother’s is staying at the house and his daughter has also come to join him. She’s about Phyl’s age, and they quickly forge a friendship. Maybe they can work something out between them.

Her mother’s friend is a political blogger and planning to attend a far-right conference, an act he’s mysteriously nervous of. In fact, he’s iterated vague warnings concerning his fears that harm may come to him. How things play out from here is both intriguing and often highly amusing. But it’s the way that the story is told – the cleverness of it – that struck me the most. Multiple styles are employed with the point of view changing a number of times. This might sound a little weird and confusing, but in practice, I found that it worked really well. In fact, it added to my enjoyment of this strangely compelling novel.

The only issue I had is that I found it a little hard to keep track of the action – perhaps because of the book's structure or maybe because I’m just not very good at following complex tales. Either way, the intelligence of the whole piece and it’s up to the minute relevancy was something I found very appealing. I’ll certainly look out more of Mr Coe’s work.

A satirical take on right wing politics. Powerful and wealthy were all encompassing in this believable storyline. Ex 1980’s Cambridge University students whose lives were connected were cleverly portrayed and incorporated as possible links into a murder mystery novel.
The setting of the novel at the time of Liz Truss’ disastrous short lived premiership.
Writing a review about this book has been difficult because I cannot say it was an enjoyable read. It took me quite a long time to become absorbed in it because there was a lot of disjointed jumping around and trying to keep track of where we were was confusing.

A really interesting take on the political mystery novel from an author I hadn't heard of before but will certainly look out for in the future. It is a rollercoaster of a read, transporting you from plot point to plot point with ease and incredible writing. Jonathan Coe's knowledge of politics and its interdependency with the powerful and wealthy, particularly on the right of the spectrum. He does a great job of satirising the system, though this was probably made easier by setting the novel at the time of Liz Truss' ill-fated premiership.

Overall, it was an entertaining and captivating political satire that cleverly disguises itself as a murder mystery. Don't let this put you off if you're politically averse as the mystery elements are compelling and equal to the political elements. If anything, some of the political parts went over my head and I still thoroughly enjoyed it! I wouldn't hesitate to read future works by Mr Coe and will definitely look at his previous novels to add to my TBR.

Phyl returns home as a Literature undergraduate unsure which career path she should follow. Quite by chance, she happens upon a forgotten novelist who was at Cambridge University during the 1980s when Phyl's mother and her friend Christopher Swann studied there. Christopher is convinced a right wing think tank, whose members also have links with the Cambridge of his time, are conspiring to return to the right wing extremism of yesteryear: privatising the NHS, significantly reducing taxes and more. Christopher shares his conspiracy theories in a blog and fears his life may now be in danger.

Whilst The Proof of My Innocence starts in the almost present day with the arrival of Liz Truss as Prime Minister, much of the novel is centred around a group of people involved with Cambridge University in the 1980s. At times I found the book a tad hectic as it moved from present to past and back again and struggled initially to immerse myself in its pages. That said, I appreciated the reminders of the tumultuous post Boris time and the sadness evoked by the death of the Queen. My enjoyment improved once the novel settled into the recount of the specifics of the 1980s Cambridge students. At times I did feel if I was reading a book within a book: a political commentary on one hand and a whodunit with a brilliant, unorthodox detective on the other.

Overall I did enjoy reading The Proof of My Innocence and was entertained by the intrigue and humour that peppered the pages.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin General UK for an advanced reader copy in return for my honest and unbiased review.