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At the end of his sorry life, Teddy Everett, reluctant heir to the Everett fortune realises that he may have been at his best when he was 14, the night Kebreth made him a communist by rubbing coffee bean oil on his face. Then he was with Lucy, who gave him Chinese burns and taught him how to smoke. As he remembers his family, his wives (and their lovers) he tries to understand what happened to that boy. Fuelled by caffeine and full of vituperation, this is a riotously original debut of honour, cowardice and bravery.
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Reviews
Part final-hour confession and part memoir . . . funny [and] imaginative
Reminiscent of Philip Roth's Everyman. But it's much, much funnier
The Coffee Story is a wild and raucous novel fuelled by caffeine, an untrammelled lust for life and an inexhaustible desire to push at the boundaries of novelistic limitation. It's an extraordinarily accomplished debut, bursting with confidence and talent.
Intense as a ristretto, sweet as a mocha, dark as a double espresso and satisfying as a cappuccino - The Coffee Story is one of the best first novels I have read in a long time, by one of the most exciting and original new writers. A real treat.
Like Coetzee's David Lurie, Teddy isn't the most appealing of heroes but his tale - and the remarkable voice in which it is told - compels us to listen. And, as with Disgrace, by the end of the novel we have assembled a portrait of a man more sympathetic, more engrossing, more heart-rending than we ever could have imagined at the outset. This is an exceptional debut.