David Annand – författare

WINNER OF THE McKITTERICK PRIZE 2022'Madcap, hugely rich and entertaining' GQ'Enjoyable, deft and humorous' The Times'Entertaining, acute and remarkably prescient' TLS'A book from the psychic fault-lines of 21st Century Britain . . . simultaneously down to earth and epic' Johny Pitts, author of AfropeanPeterdown, an industrial town with a noble past and a lacklustre present, has been chosen as the regional hub of Britain's first state-of-the-art bullet train network. High Speed+ promises the town a prosperous future but to make way for the new station, a local landmark will be have to be razed to the ground. On the shortlist are the Larkspur housing estate, a significant modernist masterpiece; and the Chapel, the beloved home of the town's football team. Local sports reporter Colin is as desperate to save the Chapel as his architect partner Ellie is determined to save the Larkspur, and they soon find themselves leading increasingly passionate and opposing campaigns. Out of this spins an epic, wide-angle novel, rich with character and incident. Affairs are embarked upon. Conspiracies are uncovered. A broad-based popular insurgency ignites. Peterdown is a riotous novel that brings England's beleaguered streetscape to life and finds lurking there a playful and storied counterculture: mad monks and machine breakers, avant-gardists and non-conformists

'A book from the psychic fault lines of 21st Century Britain, Peterdown's big ambitions never lose sight of the human and everyday. The result is something simultaneously down to earth and epic' Johny Pitts, author of AfropeanPeterdown, an industrial town with a noble past and a lacklustre present, has been chosen as the regional hub for a soon-to-be-built, ultra-high-speed railway line. The development promises to propel Peterdown headlong into a prosperous future; but in order to get there, something from the landscape of Peterdown's past will have to be demolished. On the shortlist are the Larkspur Hill housing estate, a significant modernist landmark, and the Chapel, the raucous home of the town's football team, Peterdown United. Ellie Ferguson, an architect exiled from London, is as determined to save the Larkspur as her partner, Colin, a lifelong United fan, is desperate to save the Chapel. As they each find themselves leading increasingly passionate and opposing campaigns, their essential differences become hard to ignore.Out of this spins an epic, wide-angle novel, rich with character and incident. Affairs are embarked upon. Conspiracies are uncovered. A broad-based popular insurgency ignites. Peterdown brings England's beleaguered streetscape to life and finds lurking there a playful and storied counterculture: mad monks and machine breakers, avant-gardists and non-conformists. Full of warmth, comedy, character and anarchic radicalism, Peterdown is an ambitious tale about work and play, community and place, and how, ultimately, we might live in the face of history.

'Tremendous. An actually funny comic novel as propulsive as any thriller. With savage wit, integrity and tenderness, Annand exposes the complacent nostalgia of a sandwich generation, offering both an elegy and, most impressively, a hope for change. The Dice Was Loaded from the Start is the most fun I've had all year' MATT GREENE, author of The Definitions'David Annand's brilliant comedy of manners is a Howards End for contemporary London . . . Funny, truthful and bracing' NEIL STEWART, author of Test Kitchen'The Dice Was Loaded from the Start is a sharp, witty and seductive read. Its grudges, passions, and aspirations simmer away, much like the tense inter-generational battleground at its centre. Young and old should read it and remind themselves that life is far too short to fall out, or flirt, with the neighbours' JUSTIN MYERS, author of The Glorious DeadIt's the summer of 2018. Max Anderson, in his early forties, has been living in Berlin for the past decade failing to become the filmmaker he was once tipped to be. But his wife's career is taking off, and with a generous relocation package on offer they've moved with their kids back to London. Not to the Hackney flat share that he left ten years ago but, somewhat bemusedly, into a rented home on a handsome tree-lined street in north London. Pemberton Place is populated by couples who have lived there since the seventies, who bought their houses for a song, raised their families, and now sit on a relative fortune. The Boomers, as Max thinks of them, are cultured and urbane, full of shared stories and storied pasts, and immediately take Max under their wing. Both flattered and amused, Max joins most evenings as they gather to drink wine and reminisce on glories past. Max is both insider and outsider, participant and observer: a position in which he feels disconcertingly comfortable.Then eight politically mischievous Millennials move in to an empty house on the street and upend this cosy equilibrium. With the Boomers in their crosshairs they make Pemberton Place a cause celebre, the front line in the generational battle of the haves and have nots. As the Millennials steadily up the ante and the Boomers try to assert their authority, Max - the street's sole Gen Xer - realises that everyone, eventually, has to pick a side. With wit and a propulsive pace, David Annand spins the battleground of the housing crisis into a brilliantly crafted study in intergenerational difference. The Dice Was Loaded from the Start asks: what does the good life look like? And how might we make meaning in an exhausted world?