February's choice: One Of Us by Melissa Benn
Richard 令状s:
She is the daughter of a 無所属の政治家 政治家，政治屋 and her father has been making waves and shaking the Westminster tree as long as I can remember? (I’m old enough to 解任する the days before Tony Benn abandoned his grander moniker of Anthony Wedgewood Benn).???
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So Melissa Benn knows what she’s talking about when it comes to political families. Her brother Hilary has followed his father into the 閣僚.? Sis is therefore 井戸／弁護士席 positioned to 反映する on the inner sanctums of the 政治上 ambitious.
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It must be something of a looking-glass world because it surely comes across as such in One of Us ? a place with its own p
eculiar 支配するs and strange 条約s.? Many of Benn’s characters usually say the opposite of what they mean, yet they rarely mistake one another.? We know from the off that Andy Givings,? a hot-発射 lawyer who cultivates all the 権利 接触するs, wants 力／強力にする. Why is this so （疑いを）晴らす?? Because he never says so.? He 発表するs his 意向 of entering politics with a murmured: ‘I want to be... doing? something practical,? however small.? However insignificant.’ Of course, he ends up in the 閣僚 positioning himself to be the next 総理大臣.
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When I read the blurb about this 調書をとる／予約する I 恐れるd it was going to be a thinly-disguised attack on Tony Blair and the war in Iraq. This is 領土 already 井戸／弁護士席 trodden (Robert Harris’s novel Ghost even takes the ultimate 復讐 of having the PM （負債など）支払うd in a 自殺 爆破).
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One of Us is nothing like that.? It is a 極度の慎重さを要する, 説得力のある account of the way the hunger for love and success can either 部隊 or divide families.?? It destroys the central character,? Anna.? She ends up as collateral 損失 on her own husband’s rise to the 最高の，を越す.? But it is the making of Givings’s wife,? a woman who 充てるs herself to her husband’s career and shrewdly 計画（する）s his 上向き moves on the snakes-and-ladders world they navigate so 井戸／弁護士席 together.
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Cleverly, Melissa Benn does not demonise the cunning, ruthless Givings. She makes us understand that to be a truly successful 政治家，政治屋, it is the only way to behave.
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Judy 令状s:
One of us the 正確に／まさに the 肉親，親類d of 調書をとる／予約する I would not have dreamed of 開始 if it were not for this 調書をとる／予約する club. I loathe the inner machinations of politics;? I have no patience with the 内部の worlds of those who would be king or indeed the courtly dance those around them must 成し遂げる.? The very idea of 存在 a 政治家，政治屋’s wife brings me out in 蜂の巣s.
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So sitting 負かす／撃墜する grumpily to begin One Of Us felt like the beginning of a tedious but necessary chore.
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Imagine, then, the 甘い 救済 and joy as I realised ? almost from the very first page ? that Melissa Benn is in fact 招待するing us to 観察する a fascinating and コンビナート／複合体 emotional ballet;? a gripping dynamic as the struggle between love and 力／強力にする plays itself out in a story that begins in the self-満足させるd 70s and の近くにs in the exhausted new century.
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I have often wondered what it must be like to be a part of a political family;? one that 投資するs everything and will 交流 anything in return for a seat at the 最高の，を越す （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する.? Thanks to One of Us I now have a pretty good idea.? Melissa Ben grew up and still 住むs this world ? although I sense at a 安全な distance ? and the scenes and arguments and 審議s and moral agonising she must have 観察するd for much of her life 知らせる the pages of her 調書をとる／予約する.
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I like the way she 選ぶs apart the 動機s that 運動 men in the 追跡 of 力／強力にする and status,? be they 政治家，政治屋s or ambitious 新聞記者／雑誌記者s (indeed the similarity between those two tribes is cleverly 描写するd).? I enjoyed the portrait of the wife of a man 決定するd to 上がる the greasy 政治家,?
and how her own steely 意図 to see him 後継する is almost stronger than her husband’s.
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But mostly,? I just enjoyed the 令状ing.? Melissa Benn’s intimate,? thoughtful style not only draws you の近くに to her characters;? you get the feeling you know and rather like the author, too. So Melissa,? if you’re reading this,? how about 会合 up up for a coffee いつか?
Melissa Benn
One Of Us
Amanda Ross 令状s:
When making our Daily Mail 選択s we were trying to find six 調書をとる／予約するs by new authors that are not only some of the best new fiction writers, but have a wide 範囲 of content, settings, period and styles, so you get a wide 範囲 of entertainment in your reading.? So far, the 調書をとる／予約するs have been either historical in 状況, or had an exotic 場所, so in the 利益／興味s of 多様制, this month’s 調書をとる／予約する is 始める，決める in Britain in the Blair years, in the gritty world of modern politics, but if like me, you’re not wildly 利益／興味d in the workings of Westminster, don’t be put off. This is a family saga, a thriller that uses politics for 陰謀（を企てる）, rather than a political thriller in the 伝統的な sense.
New 小説家s are advised to 令状 what they know, and Melissa Benn’s background makes her 極端に 井戸／弁護士席 placed and qualified to 令状 about the political 円形競技場, as her father is Tony Benn and her brother is 現在／一般に 国務長官 for the 環境, food and 田舎の 事件／事情／状勢s.? However I believe she has written about what she knows rather than who she knows. The story is gripping, thrilling yet poignant fiction with a 資本／首都 ‘F’, yet she says her own life has 明白に been a rich source 構成要素, as she has had the 適切な時期 to 証言，証人／目撃する at first 手渡す the 重荷（を負わせる）s and 圧力s of political office and a public life.
The central characters, the
This 調書をとる／予約する is 極端に 井戸／弁護士席 written as you would hope from an experienced 新聞記者／雑誌記者 like Melissa, and 法外なd in insight and 詳細（に述べる） that can only come from someone 同様に connected as she is, but above all it is entertaining, and when you reach the last 一時期／支部s you won’t be able to put it 負かす／撃墜する.? Soon you’ll be able to 投票（する） for your favourite out of the six 調書をとる／予約するs we’re featuring to 勝利，勝つ The Daily Mail New Writer’s Award at this year’s 星雲 British 調書をとる／予約する Awards. Will this 調書をとる／予約する get your 投票（する）? It’s going to be a の近くに run 競争.
The celebrity viewpoint:
Joanne Frogatt
Sam West
Joanne Frogatt
One of Us isn’t the 肉親，親類d of 調書をとる／予約する that I would 普通は 選ぶ up, but I’m glad that I did as I have really enjoyed it. Melissa Benn’s 令状ing style is beautiful, vividly 描写するing moments with such clarity that you are 輸送（する）d in to her world. You are 緩和するd in to the story やめる gently, and it does take a while to get going, but I 設立する that the hint of a スキャンダル kept me focussed. The characters are also very 井戸／弁護士席 drawn, and I really empathised with Anna, having seen her from childhood through ぎこちない teenage moments, university romances, and 権利 into marriage and adulthood. Although politics is definitely a 主題 in the 調書をとる／予約する, I’d say it is 第２位 to the 主題s of family, life, and 関係s and is more of a 背景. It is a beautifully written 調書をとる／予約する with vivid characters that I cared about, experiencing things that we can call relate to.
Samuel West
One of Us is a real 業績／成就; a novel about marriage, 関係s, and the human cost of the Iraq war on two English families.? It begins with a cliff-hanger and pulls us to an 必然的な but thrilling 結論.? We are led by Anna Adams, a modern Antigone with two kids, a woman of 広大な／多数の／重要な decency and attractiveness. Taught by her father to be modest and her mother to be compliant, her own ヘロイン is Martha Gellhorn the war 特派員. Benn is brilliant on the 複雑さ within 関係s, the 妥協, 退屈 and 成果／努力 of marriage; her characters are 壊れやすい, 欠陥d, contradictory and true.
Anna’s husband 告発する／非難するs her of always loving a loser. But the 関係 at the heart of the 調書をとる／予約する, between Anna and her brother Jack, is winning in the extreme.? He’s the 黒人／ボイコット sheep, an 行動主義者 who can only confide in her, and his disgust with the 宣言 of war 結局 運動s him into a shocking, violent 抗議する whose 劇の 軍隊 feels 全く 正当化するd.?
One of Us has New 労働 in its sights, 解任するing Tony and Cherie’s 教団 of shinyness brilliantly (‘What struck me was how orange they both looked...Is that necessary?”). 政治家，政治屋s don’t come out of it 井戸／弁護士席, but they are not despised; rather seen as a different 種類, who ‘learn to abandon those who are more 不正に 負傷させるd’.?
I think that this novel couldn’t have been written by a man, but I wish it could.? Anna notices things, doesn’t compartmentalise, has a habit of seeing both 味方するs of everything (‘柔軟性 is 証拠不十分 in another 状況...決意, an amoral rigidity), feels sorry for those who 傷つける her. There’s a shockingly real moment when Anna 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うs her husband’s fidelity and looks at her daughter like a stranger, as if 疑問ing that she herself had been at the conception.? But Melissa Benn’s bravest gambit i s to 結論する a novel about families by 示唆するing that we may be all alone.? That finally, there’s only one of us.
