Jonathan Coe

Jonathan Coe
At Humber Mouth Festival on 19 June 2006
Born	19 August 1961 (1961-08-19) Bromsgrove, England, UK
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	British
Period	1987–present
Genres	Satire

Jonathan Coe (born 19 August 1961) is an English novelist and writer. His work has an underlying preoccupation with political issues, although this serious engagement is often expressed comically in the form of satire. For example, What a Carve Up! reworks the plot of an old 1960s spoof horror film of the same name. It is set within the "carve up" of the UK's resources which some believed was carried out by Margaret Thatcher's right wing Conservative governments of the 1980s.

Early life and education

Coe was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. He was born on 19 August 1961 to Roger and Janet (née Kay) Coe. He studied at King Edward's School, Birmingham and Trinity College, Cambridge. He taught at the University of Warwick, where he completed an MA and PhD in English Literature.

Career

Coe has long been interested in both music and literature. In the mid 1980s he played with a band (The Peer Group) and tried to get a recording of his music.

He published his first novel in 1987. As of 2010, he has published nine novels. They have been well received and three have won literary awards.

Coe read an excerpt of The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim to crowds at the Latitude Festival. The central character was to be "a product of the social media boom," and "the sort of person with hundreds of Facebook friends but no one to talk to when his marriage breaks up.".

Film and TV adaptations

Both What a Carve Up! (1994) and The Rotters' Club (2001) have been adapted as drama serials for BBC Radio 4. The Rotters' Club was adapted for television and broadcast on BBC Two. The Dwarves of Death (1990) was filmed as Five Seconds to Spare.

Jeremy Dyson, author of The League of Gentlemen, is adapting What a Carve Up! for Channel 4. This new TV project is in development with Big Talk (Black Books, Free Agents) but has yet to be formally commissioned by C4.

Musical collaborations

Music is a constant thread in Coe's oeuvre. He played music for years and tried to find a record label as a performer before becoming a published novelist. He had to wait until 2001 to make his first appearance on a record with 9th & 13th (Tricatel, 2001), a collection of readings of his work, set to music by jazz pianist/double bass player Danny Manners and indiepop artist Louis Philippe.

Coe is a lifelong fan of Canterbury progressive rock. His novel The Rotters' Club is named after an album by Hatfield and the North. He has contributed to the liner notes for that band's archival release Hatwise Choice. He recently said: "I'd love to find a pianist to collaborate with – maybe Alex Maguire, who is now playing with the reformed line-up of Hatfield and the North". Coe has also collaborated with flautist Theo Travis.

Coe wrote the sleevenotes 'Reflections on The High Llamas' for the 2003 compilation of The High Llamas 'Retrospective, Rarities and Instrumentals.'

Personal life

Coe married Janine McKeown in 1989, and they have two daughters born in 1997 and 2000.

In 2009, Coe took part in Oxfam's first annual book festival – 'Bookfest'. Along with William Sutcliffe, Coe volunteered for the Oxfam Bloomsbury Bookshop in London on Thursday 9 July. Coe and Sutcliffe were each asked to choose a theme, and to find books from the stockroom to set up in the shop's window. Coe chose satire as the theme for his display. He chose books about or by Michael Moore, Bill Hicks and Steve Bell, and Tragically I Was an Only Twin: The Comedy of Peter Cook. He also unearthed a script of Terry Gilliam’s film, Brazil.

Coe donated a story to Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales' project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Coe's story was published in the Earth collection.

Coe is an atheist.

Novels

• The Accidental Woman, Duckworth, 1987
• A Touch of Love, Duckworth, 1989
• The Dwarves of Death, Fourth Estate, 1990
• What a Carve Up! or The Winshaw Legacy Viking, 1994 (winner of the 1994 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize)
• The House of Sleep, Viking, 1997 (winner of the Prix Médicis)
• The Rotters' Club, Viking, 2001 (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize).
• The Closed Circle, Viking, 2004
• The Rain Before It Falls, Viking, 2007
• The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, Viking, 2010

Non-fiction

• Humphrey Bogart: Take It and Like It, London: Bloomsbury, 1991
• James Stewart: Leading Man, London: Bloomsbury, 1994
• Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B. S. Johnson, London: Picador, 2004 (winner of the 2005 Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction)

Honours and awards

• 1994, John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
• 1997, Prix Médicis
• 2001, Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize
• 2005, Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction
• 2006, honorary PhD from the University of Birmingham

External links

• Jonathan Coe's website and blog
• Closing the Circle: Jonathan Coe In Interview
• Online discussion about Jonathan Coe and B.S. Johnson
• "Letter from England: A Blairite Novel" Review of Coe's The Closed Circle in n+1 magazine.
• Jonathan Coe at Contemporary Writers
• A one-hour interview about his writing (France-Culture, Bibliothèque étrangère, Francesca Isidori)
• Jonathan Coe on Writing
• Audio Podcast on BBC4's Bookclub
• Jonathan Coe reading from "The Rain Before It Fall" at writLOUD