# The Echo Chamber

By John Boyne

Profile: https://hahafiction.com/books/the-echo-chamber-4c9efeed/

Television interviewer George Cleverley believes he is a national institution. His novelist wife Beverley and their three grown children have reputations of their own to protect. As the family makes a mess of its public and private lives, social media gives every mistake a much larger audience.

## What makes it funny?

George cannot even get his preferred cocktail garnish. The bartender posts his drinks on Instagram and refuses an extra citrus twist because a previous substitution brought death threats from purists. A small request for another piece of peel turns into a dispute about online reputation.

### The comedy at work

George credits himself with enlightened views while treating an affair and its consequences as inconveniences inflicted on him. When he introduces his mistress to a politician, he invents an occupation for her, then struggles to explain why being a hatmaker would make their lunch less suspicious.

### Try this if…

A family farce for readers who enjoy watching comfortable, self-important people explain themselves into deeper trouble. Celebrity manners and public displays of virtue receive close attention; social-media arguments intrude even on lunch.

### Good to know

The opening includes adultery, an unplanned pregnancy and jokes about gender-neutral pronouns. The satire takes aim at contentious arguments about identity as well as its characters' vanity.

## What to expect

- Genre: Contemporary & literary
- On the shelf: Family comedy
- Kind of humor: Farce · Satire
- Audience: Adult
- Format: Novel
- Length: 528 pages
- Audiobook: 14 hr 38 min
- Published: 2021

## A few distinguishing details

- A television celebrity with an unusually generous view of himself
- Cocktail recipes subject to Instagram outrage
- A privileged family losing control of its public image

## Sources & further reading

- Review: [The Guardian review](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/26/the-echo-chamber-by-john-boyne-review-hogarthian-remorselessness)
- Publisher: [Publisher](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/439146/the-echo-chamber-by-boyne-john/9781529176742)
- Reading sample: [Publisher extract](https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-echo-chamber-9781529176742/extracts/2566-the-echo-chamber)
- Author commentary: [Author](https://johnboyne.com/book/the-echo-chamber)
- Library catalog: [Listening Books](https://www.listening-books.org.uk/book/the-echo-chamber/13053)