A Week in December

by Sebastian Faulks

Disappointed with what promised to be a very good and topical story. The timing couldn't have been better. The format was interesting, the theme spot-on, tackling all the grim anomalies of our supposedly progressive and sophisticated society.  But this became the problem because it was just too pat that a relatively small group of people/associates reflected all that is worst in society - from pornography, individual and corporate greed, religious intolerance, bigotry, drugs, terrorism, suicide, family dysfunction, snobbery and brittle relationships.
It just didn't work well - with far too much needless and mind-numbing details regarding the finer complexities of hedge-fund abuses - although this was the crux of the story it could have been made less boring.  This is fiction, after all.
This does not 'hold a mirror' to society so much as exaggerates one small part of it.  I fail to see how the Daily Telegraph  thought it "Hilarious", perhaps a defensive comment as the novel  exposes and exaggerates the fault-lines of the Right's ideology.  Although the view that this is 'vicious satire' makes more sense and would help account for some of the more unbelievable characters and situations.
Maybe I just got out of bed on the wrong side, but in my view the author who produced 'Birdsong' could and should have done better.
I hope someone out there is going to disagree with me?  Comment is free, please join in...