The Dice Was Loaded from the Start
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Little, Brown Book Group
Publishing:4th Feb '27
£8.99
This title is due to be published on 4th February, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Welcome to Pemberton Place, a leafy North London street, home to a cosy crowd of aging baby boomers, who moved in for a song and now find their properties are staggeringly desirable. Most recently it is also home to Max Anderson and his young family - courtesy of his wife's new job and a generous relocation package.
Max may be a Gen-Xer, but the Boomers find him a breath of fresh air. In turn, he is enthralled as they welcome him into their houses bursting with the bookish bric-a-brac of their past lives - glory days of travel, parties, politics, careless affairs and encounters with the before-they-were-famous and infamous.
The kind of life Max might have wanted for himself.
But at the age of 42, Max is coming to terms with the fact that his career as a filmmaker has stalled and, really, so has he.
Then eight politically minded Millennials move into an empty house, intent on making noise: casting the Boomers as the evil public face of the generational battle of the haves and have nots, they make Max the key to fulfilling much their bigger plans.
Max is trapped. He adores the Boomers and hankers after their sophisticated affluence but is drawn to the youthful energy and promise of the righteous Millennials.
Which side will he pick?
Full of tenderness, humour and sharp observation, The Dice Was Loaded From The Start is a heartfelt and, ultimately, hopeful story about chance, choice and how we may yet bridge all that divides us.
Tremendous. An actually funny comic novel as propulsive as any thriller. With savage wit, integrity and tenderness, Annand exposes the complacent nostalgia of a sandwich generation, offering both an elegy and, most impressively, a hope for change. The Dice Was Loaded from the Start is the most fun I've had all year -- MATT GREENE, author of The Definitions
David Annand's brilliant comedy of manners is a Howards End for contemporary London . . . Funny, truthful and bracing -- NEIL STEWART, author of Test Kitchen
The Dice Was Loaded from the Start is a sharp, witty and seductive read. Its grudges, passions, and aspirations simmer away, much like the tense inter-generational battleground at its centre. Young and old should read it and remind themselves that life is far too short to fall out, or flirt, with the neighbours -- JUSTIN MYERS, author of The Glorious Dead
An absorbing drama . . . The Dice Was Loaded is narrower in focus than [Annand's] impressive debut Peterdown, but like that novel explores the tensions that liberal economic policies have exacerbated . . . The five-word pitch: for fans of Jonathan Coe. Another fine writer of novels driven by social themes is very welcome -- Nicholas Clee * Bookbrunch *
Lovely turns of phrase and a zippy plot line keep the narrative moving along at a good pace, with the underlying social themes never weighing down the text. If you like sharp social commentary bathed in wit and character, you'll find this a delicious read -- Sarah Birch * East End Review *
[A] sharply-written, stylish tale is about boomers, Gen X-ers and millennials... the lifestyle detalls are spot on and the whole scene brilliantly observed -- Wendy Holden * Daily Mail *
The Dice Was Loaded from the Start offers a tender, thoughtful contemplation of generational divides, the housing crisis, and the fickle nature of art, ultimately succeeding through its granular inspection of the human spirit * Irish Times *
Enjoyable and largely well-observed tale of intergenerational conflict . . . Annand nicely delineates the different generations: the boomers with their tales of Homsey art school in '68, and bookcases full of the National Geographic, and the millennials with their meaningless tattoos and intentionally bad haircuts. Max himself is a poignant reminder of that lost period of 1990s optimism -- Christopher Shrimpton * TLS *
This is my favorite kind of novel, where "nothing happens" but everything does . . . What's so impressive [...] is the way that it intimately and non-judgementally manages to render all three generations on the page, showing where there are through lines that everyone embedded within the conflict can't see (and that all of us online struggle with), perfectly capturing the crossed wires * Cambridge Independent *
ISBN: 9781472155887
Dimensions: 198mm x 126mm x 22mm
Weight: 41g
256 pages