Claire Powell’s first novel, At the Table (2022), delineated a year in the life of the Maguire family from south London – a separating couple and their adult children – with each chapter revolving around a meal. This was done so cleverly that not only did it not seem gimmicky, it was not even immediately obvious. The book won many plaudits, including from Philip Hensher and Marian Keyes. All In is even better.
Jo and Dave are about to go on a trip with Dave’s investment broker brother, Teddy, Teddy’s girlfriend, Kayla, and Dave and Teddy’s father, Alan. The brothers’ mother, Val, has recently died. The holiday has been paid for by Teddy, much to Dave’s discomfort.
Jo and Dave’s marriage is at crisis point after a round of unsuccessful IVF, and she is haunted by the insistent refrain: ‘It’s over.’ She watches Dave as he waters plants one evening with noise-cancelling earphones on: ‘At one time in her life it might’ve intrigued Jo to know what was going on in Dave’s mind. She was quite jealous at the beginning, always fearful he fancied someone else, that he might leave her for a colleague or an ex. Now – 19 years in – she found she didn’t care.’
Powell is like an anthropologist, pinpointing details so that we know the precise milieu that Jo (a nurse) and Dave (a council employee) inhabit. When she yawns, a glint of metal fillings in her molars is on display; her holiday shoes are a ‘silver Birkenstock Arizona dupe’. He has a Charlton Athletic tattoo on his calf, which he affects not to regret. I winced as he offered to buy a round at the airport, a move which soon escalates.
It occurred to me how rarely we encounter lower-middle-class couples as protagonists in literary fiction without them being caricatured – and frankly how weird that is, when these people make up a huge part of British society. Powell refuses to condemn any of her characters, and I was rather moved when, for example, irritable Alan unexpectedly speaks of how the last years of his marriage were the happiest.
All In is principally a superior beach read with a propulsive plot; but Powell is also doing something quietly political by placing Jo and Dave centre stage and showing us the complexity and richness of these so-called ordinary lives.
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