We’re getting a new Kate Atkinson novel, set in a 1920s nightclub.
This fall is shaping up to be a very exciting time for new books by beloved writers—we’ll be getting two new novels by Cormac McCarthy, a new collection by George Saunders, and, as announced by Doubleday today, a new standalone Kate Atkinson novel, Shrines of Gaiety.
The novel is set in 1926 London, which, after World War I, “has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time.”
The story sounds like it combines elements of Atkinson’s previous standalone novels (Life After Life and A God In Ruins were both set in the years during and between the two wars) and her Jackson Brodie novels. It tells the story of Nellie Coker, a ruthless, ambitious nightlife queen and mother of six. “But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within. For beneath the dazzle of Soho’s gaiety, there is a dark underbelly, a world in which it is all too easy to become lost.”
Shrines of Gaiety will be published on September 27, 2022.
