‘The Snakes’ by Sadie Jones (2019) – 438 pages

Money corrupts, and a whole lot of money corrupts absolutely. This is the novel I have been waiting for, the one that captures our time precisely, both the widespread casual racism and the dreadful power of money to corrupt.

“One banknote had value, you could buy things with it- food, clothes – but a box full felt different. It had power.”

Bea’s father Griff Adamson made his first money as a slumlord and increased it through many other crooked schemes. Now he’s retired and a billionaire and thinks very highly of himself. He has a private jet, a duplex in New York, a manor house in Hampshire and a hotel in France run by his self-indulgent frivolous son Alex. The men who hang around him, lawyers and such, treat Griff and his family like royalty.

“He smiled and went. He must make over a million pounds a year, he had a family, yet he tiptoed around her like a lackey.”

Daughter Bea has total disdain for her father Griff. She won’t take any of her father’s money. She, a psychological therapist, and her husband Dan get by without any help from father.

“Did you think he was just hard-working and lucky? Do you know the people he associates with?”

Bea and Dan live in a one-bedroom flat in north London. Dan is the son of a black mother and a white father who left when Dan was still a kid. Up until now Bea has avoided her father and his money.

“It wasn’t the love of money that was the root of all evil, only the love of it above other things. Like fire, it could be a good servant. If she could be disciplined, not be seduced, or let it master her. If she were strong enough not to be corrupted. If she were vigilant and not let it master her.”

Bea and Dan decide to take some time off and go traveling using the Cushion, a few thousand dollars they have saved. Their first stop is brother Alex’s dilapidated hotel in France.

‘The Snakes’ starts out quite light, but things get intense in France especially after Bea’s father Griff and her mother Liv show up at the hotel. Sadie Jones rolls out this story in irresistible deadpan style. We learn about her characters not by explanations or descriptions but by their own actions, words, and thoughts. And these characters are at least as off the wall as the people in real life.

‘The Snakes’ is the first novel which I have read which effectively captures the current plight of England, France, and indeed the United States today. Money corrupts, and a whole lot of money corrupts absolutely.

Grade:   A