Michael Bracewell — art critic and biographer of Roxy Music — published his previous novel, Perfect Tense, 22 years ago. Unfinished Business is, his publisher says, his “return to the form”. It is not his return to form, because his writing in other literary areas has been consistently compelling for the past two decades, up to and including Souvenir (2021), his non-fiction elegy for the London of the late 1970s and early 1980s, its music, art, fashion and considerably cheaper rents. Like Souvenir, Unfinished Business is concerned with the effects of time and the way London and its people have changed in the past half-century.
Perfect Tense tells the story of an anonymous office worker who breaks with his tedious routine on a tumultuous day. At its outset, Unfinished Business feels like more of the same, when we are introduced to Martin Knight, a fiftysomething whose black suit and “nondescript tie pronounced him a…
