This is the Life

By Joseph O'Neill

Book Overview

The debut novel from Joseph O'Neill, author of the Man Booker Prize longlisted and Richard & Judy pick, 'Netherland'.

James Jones is slipping steadily through life. He has a steady job as a junior partner at a solicitor's firm, a steady girlfriend and a steady mortgage. Nothing much is happening in Jones's life but he really doesn't mind - this is exactly the way he likes it.

Michael Donovan, meanwhile, is a star - a world-class international lawyer and advocate - he's everything Jones wanted to be and isn't. Jones was once Donovan's pupil and, for a while, it looked like he too would make his name - but he left that high-powered world behind a long time ago, or so he thought.

One day Jones reads in the paper that Donovan has collapsed in court - then, out of the blue, Donovan contacts him; he has a job he needs Jones to work on...

Joseph O'Neill's debut is wonderfully clever and comic novel - about ambitions and aspirations and the realities that they inevitably collide with.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 000730921X
• ISBN13: 9780007309214
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

At last

I unearthed this book recently when finally getting to unpack all my books from the boxes they've been sitting in for the last couple of years. I thought I had lost it. I read it years ago and couldn't remember the author's name or the title, but thankfully recognised the cover the instant I unpacked it. What I did remember is that it was very, very funny. It lodged itself in my mind as one of the few novels I would bother to read again, and now I have my hands on it, that's exactly what I shall do. My ex-partner read it too, and shared my opinion. I can't recommend it highly enough. Such a shame it now seems to be out of print.