Seventies era, Britain. Tasteless English fast food and ugly school uniforms; comical rock musicians and rotten politicians; racism sprinkled with hypocrisy and a sense of change - this is a portrait of that time, surreal, tragic and a little ridiculous. These years marked the growing up of Ben and his friends - the heroes of the new novel by the modern English classic Jonathan Coe. It is possible that future generations will imagine England at the end of the twentieth century based on Jonathan Coe’s novel. But Coe is by no means a documentarian, he is an inventor and virtuoso of plot. In the new novel, as in “The House of Sleep,” the writer weaves a complex plot lace that breaks up into many threads, which in the final form a clear, precise and completely unexpected picture. “The Crayfish Club” does not flirt with the reader, there are no cliched moves or platitudes in it, it is a great novel in the best traditions of English literature, a rare pleasure for a real reader.