This novel is vintage Nicholls and shows that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step
David Nicholls is the bestselling author of Starter for Ten, The Understudy, One Day, Us and Sweet Sorrow. Photograph: Sophia SpringOne of the joys of reading a David Nicholls novel is his seamless way with plotting and structure, his tactical use of sliding-doors moments and turning points where the reader is able to see more than the character but can do nothing except sit back and watch as the hero or heroine makes one poor, ill-informed decision after the next.
An epigraph from Austen’s Persuasion gives some idea of the terrain: a central duo who feel they are already beyond hope of finding love again. Divorced copywriter Marnie leads an increasingly solitary and contained life in the wake of the pandemic. Michael is a geography teacher in his 40s suffering from PTSD after a traumatic event.
You Are Here contains plenty of casually imparted wisdom characteristic of his writing: “ was well-liked as a teacher, more than he knew, though he could no longer pull off the larky irreverence required to be adored.” Marnie’s take on scrolling social media is that “she felt as if she was looking up at a party from beneath a lamp-post”.
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