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the complete review - fiction

The Proof of My Innocence

by
Jonathan Coe

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

A- : craftily done, and good fun in a variety of ways

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "This is a thinly disguised polemic. But Proof tries to cover for itself by putting every character up for ridicule, not just the bloodsucking factional Tory right. (...) Writing a contemporary state-of-the-nation novel is an admirably ambitious task. And Coe captures some moments well in his famous set pieces (.....) (W)ithin the tedious polemic there is a great whodunnit. It is almost worth enduring Proof’s tawdry politics for it alone. Coe knows how to write a novel: it is well paced, he makes complex plots look easy, he has a way of marshalling a large cast of characters that never feels contrived, the prose is pleasant and not invasive, and he is -- rare for a novelist -- funny. But Coe’s skills are thwarted by Proof’s anti-establishment foot stomping; his customary wry smile replaced with a furrowed brow." - Finn McRedmond, Financial Times
  
  
• "There’s a lot going on, and Coe marshals it all with ingenious ease. As ever, the real target -- the savagery behind the cosiness -- is the amoral individualism and free-market greed of those with power and privilege (.....) Coe enjoys himself satirising literary fashions, creative jealousy and the inevitable passing of time, with a bittersweet nostalgia for his own youth, when society was seduced by money, and the books world by Martin Amis’s Money. (...) Coe’s subject may be inertia and nostalgia, but The Proof of My Innocence is full of energy. It’s a madcap caper, a sideways memoir, a tricksy jeu d’esprit that is also a quiet defence of fiction in a post-truth age, and enormous fun to read." - Justine Jordan, The Guardian
  
  
• "The Proof of My Innocence -- proof as in both demonstration and correctable copy, and innocence as in both lack of guilt and naivety -- is a more serious examination of literature’s power and limitations than the mixture of whodunit and political chronicle in which it is wrapped at first suggests. (...) The narrative comes at us in various guises including memoir, autofiction, present- and past-tense personal accounts and, most amusingly, the first draft of the kind of cosy mystery destined to sell millions in spite of the deficiencies of its prose (.....) Where the novel sits in times like these is one of Coe’s questions, and if asking it involves deploying secret passages, treacherous hairpin bends, burned manuscripts and, naturally, a villain hiding in plain sight, then so be it. As he might observe, you have to move with the times." - Alex Clark, The Observer
  
  
• "His characters are not the first to find the public transport refrain 'See it, say it, sorted' jarring, but it takes Coe to turn this into the organising principle for a book of 340 pages. The result is endlessly satisfying. Coe has a gift for taking his material to extremes, so that nothing is ever wasted. (...) This book takes the search to the nature of the novel itself. Why is there cosy crime ? What is autofiction ? At times the quest seems to lead away from Britain and towards something more European" - Tom Payne, The Spectator
  
  
• "Varieties of genre, place and period are shuffled in Coe’s pages. Miscellaneousness is everywhere. The book’s title is given at least four meanings: the proof of my lack of guilt, the proof of my unworldliness, the proof copy of a book called My Innocence, and the proof of “my inner sense”. Figures reappear under changing guises. Scenarios swivel into new perspectives. As well as diversity there’s unevenness. Quality-control of humour has never been Coe’s forte and while his novel has deft ironies, it’s also lumbered with heavy-handed facetiousness. (...) Elsewhere Coe is on engaging form. (....) The result often sizzles with satiric and entertaining brio." - Peter Kemp, Sunday Times
  
  
• "The prose strides along with a mature confidence, combining level-headed analysis and droll satire with a strong narrative drive as it both celebrates and investigates distinct fictional genres. The result is an intriguing whodunnit that marries literary/philosophical speculations about the nature of reality with a condemnation of recent right-wing shenanigans." - Andrew Motion, Times Literary Supplement

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       The Proof of My Innocence begins with a short (pre-)prologue, a scene in which a detective follows a suspect onto a train and then arrests them. Detective, suspect, and victim all remain unnamed, but readers of course then anticipate a good old-fashioned murder-mystery cum procedural. They won't be disappointed by what follows -- but there's also quite a lot more to Coe's novel.
       This short introductory scene also finds the detective irritated by the repeated loudspeaker interruptions by the British Transport Police-slogan, "See it. Say it. Sorted." -- a refrain which Coe then uses and appropriates for the triptych that the bulk of the novel consists of. It also comes up again repeatedly in the novel, and is one of several recurring elements -- the TV show Friends is another -- that seem to be just background color but actually also play a more significant part in the story.
       Before the three-novel-parts get going there is, however, also a (lengthy) scene-setting Prologue, focused on recent university graduate Phyl -- twenty-three, back living at home with her parents, and working at Heathrow airport at Japanese fast-food chain, Hey ! Teriyaki (surely a stand-in for YO!). Phyl doesn't know what to do with her life, but: "She was thinking of writing a book". Not that she'd really ever written anything before, but what the hell ? And when she's pointed to the 'cosy crime' phenomenon she thinks: "Surely she could write a book like this ?" But it's not the only genre she considers. When asked what she likes reading, she admits: "Dark academia". And then she learns that autofiction is "very fashionable" nowadays, too .....
       Christopher Swann, who had gone to Cambridge with Phyl's mother, Joanna, comes over, and his adopted daughter, Rashida, joins him. Christopher is on his way to a conference held by TrueCon -- "Originally an American foundation, it has now opened a British wing and has strong links both to the most Trumpian extremes of the Republican Party and our own dear Conservative Party's lunatic fringe". He writes a rabble-rousing blog and wants to expose the dark plans he is certain those involved with TrueCon -- which also includes some from those Cambridge days -- have.
       This section of the novel covers 2 to 5 September 2022 -- ending on the eve of Liz Truss becoming the British Prime Minister, with Christopher prophesying: "Tomorrow is when real life stops and fantasy begins". The story continues, with Part One following Christopher's trail to and experiences at the conference.
       The bulk of each of the three central parts of The Proof of My Innocence take the form of a different kind of novel -- the three kinds that Phyl was toying with, in fact, overlayed on the British Transport Police-refrain. Part One -- 'See it' -- is presented largely as: Murder at Wetherby Pond: A Cosy Crime Mystery. Part Two -- 'Say it' -- is: The Shadow Chamber: A Dark Academia Story. And in Part Three -- 'Sorted' -- we get: Proof/Reborn: An Essay in Autofiction. The three parts cover Liz Truss' fifty disastrous days in office -- and so also include the death of Queen Elizabeth II (an occurrence which also puts a bit of a damper on TrueCon).
       TrueCon is being held at Wetherby Hall the estate and hotel currently owned and run by Randolph Wetherby -- though he's apparently facing considerable financial difficulties with it. Among those at the conference are a philosopher who was also famous for his salons at Cambridge in Christopher's student days, Emeric Coutts -- a leading conservative thinker --, as well as old classmates Roger Wagstaff, of the sinister Processus Group, and his long-time devoted assistant, Rebecca Wood. Kwasi Kwarteng was to be a keynote speaker, but after being named Chancellor of the Exchequer by Truss in the new government can't come; in his stead, a Richard Wilkes is invited to speak, "on a cultural theme". Wilkes is: "The world's leading authority" on Peter Cockerill, an author who published a few books in the 1980s but was ignored by the literary establishment and died an apparent suicide -- but whose work has been getting more attention and recognition recently.
       Wilkes' lecture is titled: 'Master of Reinvention: Themes on Renewal in the Novels of Peter Cockerill, and Their Importance to the Conservative Movement', and Cockerill and his work also come up repeatedly in the story -- specifically his final, posthumously published work (cum (apparent) suicide note), My Innocence. The proofs of My Innocence were nearly all destroyed -- but, yes, a proof of the novel does also play a role in the story here .....
       There is a murder -- and the victim is able to leave a small clue, managing to scrawl on a piece of paper what looks like possibly the beginning of the letter 'P' or 'R' and then, quite clearly, '8/2' -- but there will be quite a lot of speculation about what this means. The crime is investigated by just-about-to-retire Inspector Prudence Freeborn -- who soon also moves on to interviewing Phyl's mother, thinking:

Perhaps the whole key to the affair was to be found not in room nine of Wetherby Hall, but in a story of student friendship that led all the way back to the 1980s.

But Friends isn't reality, that's what's so great about it. That's exactly why I watch it -- because it's an escape from reality. You want to escape from reality? he says, incredulous. (I imagine him gesturing at the window.) We spent thousands of dollars so that we could come and see this reality. It's fucking beautiful. ow can you have a problem with this ? Reality isn't what you see out of the window, she answers. It's what's inside your head. That's the only reality that matters, isn't it ?

     Rash thinks fiction is "fake" and "embarrassing". Is she right ?
     Alternative viewpoint: in a world where all efforts to tell the truth in words or images are compromised, contaminated, there's something unique about fiction. Something authentic, something you can depend on.
     PURE/RELIABLE

- M.A.Orthofer, 2 January 2025

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Links:

• Europa Editions publicity page
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• L'amica dei libri (Italian)
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• Whispering Stories

• The complete review's Jonathan Coe page
• Official site

• The Accidental Woman
• Bournville
• The Closed Circle
• The Dwarves of Death
• Expo 58
• The House of Sleep
• Like a Fiery Elephant
• Middle England
• Mr. Wilder and Me
• Number 11
• The Rain before it Falls
• The Rotters' Club
• The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim
• A Touch of Love
• What a Carve Up ! (also: The Winshaw Legacy)

• See Index of Contemporary British fiction at the complete review

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About the Author:

       Born in 1961, Jonathan Coe attended Cambridge and Warwick universities. He is the author of several novels.

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© 2025 the complete review

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