Three Brothers

Ackroyd, a Guardian Fiction Prize and Whitbread award winner, British historian, and biographer, tells a tale of three brothers born in successive years to working-class parents in grimy postwar London. Though playmates in their youth, they grow apart after the painful but never discussed disappearance of their mother. Harry, the eldest, is outgoing and ambitious; Daniel, the middle son, bookish and gay; Sam, the youngest, a troubled loner. By the 1960s, when the bulk of the story takes place, the boys inhabit different universes. The unusual circumstance of their births, announced in the first paragraph of the novel (they all share the same birthday), hints at the surprising and lyrical touches of magical realism that will appear throughout. The theme of coincidence is strong, as, unbeknownst to them, the brothers' vastly different lives nonetheless revolve around the same few shady underworld characters.