Veronica or the Two Nations

by David Caute

Standing between the Honorable Michael Parsons and his ambition to become the next Prime Minister is a secret as obsessive as it is politically explosive--his incestuous relationship with Veronica, his half-sister

Genres: Fiction

318 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Caute’s seventh novel is blackly humorous incest narrative, featuring loathsome Tory MP protagonist Michael Parsons, a conniving snob whose teenage penchant for his half-sister Veronica has vicious personal and political repercussions. Running alongside this wartime tale is tabloid reporter Bert Frame’s attempts to expose Parsons, a lifelong nemesis, in the 1980s present, for crimes suffered in the poorhouse as an urchin. The novel serves up another caustic depiction of minor public boarding school life (as seen in a trillion other English novels), and explores the diseased roots of the class-driven political system with cutting wit. The incest narrative, in particular Veronica’s motives, is not wholly convicing, and the outcome of that strand is not a triumph. Caute is always an erudite entertainer and never averse to confronting controversial topics with style and venom.