The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim

Front Cover
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Mar 6, 2012 - Fiction - 400 pages

Maxwell Sim can’t seem to make a single meaningful connection. He maintains an e-mail correspondence with his estranged wife, though under a false identity; his incomprehensible teenage daughter prefers her BlackBerry to his conversation; and his childhood best friend refuses to return his calls. In an attempt to get out of this horrible rut, Max quits his job at the local department store and accepts a strange business proposition that has him driving a Prius full of toothbrushes from London to the remote Shetland Islands. But Max’s trip doesn’t go as planned, as he’s unable to resist making a series of impromptu visits to important figures from his past.
 
A modern-day picaresque from Jonathan Coe—acclaimed author of The Rotters’ ClubThe Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim explores the difficulties of making genuine connections in a world of advanced communications technology and rampant social networking.

 

Selected pages

Contents

Section 1
3
Section 2
17
Section 3
32
Section 4
45
Section 5
51
Section 6
72
Section 7
77
Section 8
85
Section 16
190
Section 17
205
Section 18
227
Section 19
247
Section 20
255
Section 21
273
Section 22
275
Section 23
277

Section 9
92
Section 10
102
Section 11
118
Section 12
134
Section 13
147
Section 14
159
Section 15
173
Section 24
313
Section 25
337
Section 26
359
Section 27
376
Section 28
385
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2012)

Jonathan Coe’s awards include the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, the Prix Médicis Étranger, and, for The Rotters’ Club, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. He lives in London with his wife and their two daughters.
 
Visit the author’s website: www.jonathancoewriter.com.

Bibliographic information