Book: Meltdown by Ben Elton

In a way, Meltdown is another historical fiction book by Ben Elton, although it is a world away from Two Brothers. Or is it?

It has a large cast of characters, revolving around 5 university friends. The protagonist is greed/power and in Two Brothers, it was power/greed, as that was about living through Nazi Germany.

Mainly we go back and forth on Jimmy who 5 minutes ago, had the Midas touch and made money in his sleep as a city trader. The downturn came in 2008, just as he had remortgaged his Notting Hill mansion and bought a street of houses in an upcoming borough of East London. 

His friends are a Labour MP, a banker, an architect and a stuff shop ‘lifestyle’ entrepreneur who runs her business with her husband, another uni mate.

The book veers between university, the high time and Jimmy being penniless and living on benefits. While they close the doors shut on most of the rooms in the house, they have to learn how to raise their 3 young children once they part company with their beloved live-in nanny. Even though Jimmy and Monica have humble roots, they appear to have no idea of what is involved with raising kids. They also don’t have the nuance to rent out the numerous, well-decorated ensuite, empty rooms in their mainly unused home or at least run a B&B. 

Bizarrely, they make a £1 million charity donation from their unexpected (and ill-gotten) gains when they're at their lowest point, as Monica had previously promised while living on benefits and relying on handouts from his parents.

The book has a pop at New Labour all the way through, and brings in the MP expenses scandal, cash for honours scandal and everything else the author disliked about the most successful labour government in recent years. Fair enough.

And the friends all go to Live 8 in some guise of doing good as they sip on their champers.

The cast of characters is thoroughly unlikeable, with the exception of regular people on the outside, like the nanny and Jimmy’s parents. Yet I am compelled to read the nearly 500 pages of this saga, even though I don’t care about any of them.

Damn you Ben Elton.