"A punk-hearted coming-of-age novel of rebellion, love, and reinvention."
From the Author of A Perfect Explanation, one of The Times' Best Books of the Year
A radical daughter. A closeted father. A prim mother turned protester. One runaway girl sets a family on fire—and lights the way to liberation.
In the bleak winter of 1982, fifteen-year-old Bridget has had enough. Enough of Thatcher’s Britain, enough of being invisible, and enough of her family’s secrets. Armed with little more than a sharp tongue and a fierce sense of justice, she runs away from her suburban life to join the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp—one of the most iconic protest movements in British history.
But Bridget’s disappearance doesn’t just blow open her own life. It sends shockwaves through her fractured family: her distant, conservative mother, who’s about to fall headlong into a love affair she never saw coming, and her father—a man with secrets of his own, who’s spent a lifetime hiding in plain sight.
Set at the unlikely intersection of nuclear disarmament and personal awakening, FALLOUT is a fearless, darkly funny exploration of identity, family, and midlife reinvention. With an irreverent bite that evokes Fleabag, the emotional complexity of Bad Sisters, and the political urgency of Milkman, Eleanor Anstruther has written a novel that is “gutsy, urgent, and heartfelt” (Emma Forrest), full of “wit, fire, and serious truths” (Joanna Pocock).
As the three members of this quietly explosive family collide on the protest lines—armed with placards, secrets, and unlikely hope—they’re forced to confront what they’ve been hiding from each other, and from themselves.
Perfect for readers of Meg Mason, Ali Smith, and Nina Stibbe, FALLOUT is a luminous, unforgettable novel about the lies we tell to survive—and the courage it takes to finally come undone.
