On the HahaFiction shelf
The Echo Chamber
Audiobook available · 14 hr 38 min
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.
From the author’s blurb
“To err is maybe to be human but to really foul things up you only need a phone.”Read the full description at John Boyne, official book description
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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.
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
More funny family comedy
Sources & further reading
- The Guardian review
Review
- Publisher
Publisher
- Publisher extract
Reading sample
- Author
Author commentary
- Listening Books
Library catalog
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