Joy

Lee expertly unfoldshis narrative, leading his readers up cul-de-sacs only to reveal their purpose several chapters later. We learn about those who seem to think they knew Joy in their sessions with a counsellor which alternate with her own account. It’s a structure that could easily have backfired but Lee handles it deftly so that each narrative throws light on the other, allowing characters to reveal themselves rather than relying on clunky descriptions. There’s a good deal of black humour in their self revelations and the novel is peppered with nicely comic throwaway remarks. The whole coheres beautifully, leading readers entertainingly to the novel’s shocking and sobering conclusion. Highly recommended, and out in paperback in the first week of June.

A Life in Books

A major new voice in British fiction.

Guardian

A brilliant book... Jonathan Lee is one of those rare, agile writers who can take your breath away.

Catherine O’Flynn, author of What Was Lost

One of Britain’s most exciting writers… A wonderful book.

Stylist

Very stylish, observant and oh so spiky, this is an incredible, often uncomfortable novel that you just can't put down... Modern, vibrant, funny and dark 5/5

thebookbag.com

Exquisitely and surprisingly written…[Joy] proves that Lee is a significant talent and that his future work should be well worth awaiting.

Observer

Outstanding ... a forensic portrayal of despair that shows Lee to be an exceptional, brave prose stylist... Funny and humane, Joy is an enormously impressive piece of storytelling.

Tom Williams, Literary Review

Lee's the real deal - a British writer on the cusp of greatness... A brilliant powerful dissection of modern Britain.

Henry Sutton, Daily Mirror

Lee constructs office scenes easily, weaving together numerous characters and dialogues with flair…the writing crackles.

Independent on Sunday

an excellent novel… A harrowing look at the sleazy underbelly of the corporate world that never pulls its punches.

Alex Preston, FHM

With its supple prose, ingenious structure, wit and slow-burn sympathy, Joy is a sly miracle of a novel.

A.D. Miller

A tense and disturbing novel.

Richard Susskind, The Times

A quite superb piece of work.

Huffington Post

Sparky... modern... brilliant

Claudia Winkleman, BBC Radio 2 Arts Show

[A] discomforting and acute tragicomedy ... The bleaker and darker his book becomes, the better it gets, building to a shocking and expertly executed conclusion. Tipped for the top on publication of his first novel, Lee here confirms his talent

Daily Mail

For all painful events it covers, this is a joyful book. Lee educates us in the beautiful mess of humanity surrounding this tragic event. Joy is one of the best new novels this year.

We Love This Book

Jonathan Lee’s second novel, Joy (William Heinemann), charts the final day in the life of a high-flying young lawyer. Lee writes with extraordinary vividness, with prose so sharply defined it takes your breath away.

Elizabeth Day, Observer (Books of the Year 2012)

[Joy] displays a real flair for narrative and characterisation…Highly accomplished…The closest comparison that can be made is with Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came to the End, which shares a similarly bravura command of narrative voice…Exquisitely and surprisingly written…it proves that Lee is a significant talent and that his future work should be well worth awaiting.

Observer

[One] of Britain’s most exciting writers… I loved how Jonathan Lee’s Joy gradually unravels through different characters…The ending of Joy is brilliantly shocking. I finished it three weeks ago and it’s still playing on my mind… Something about Joy’s slow and brooding story really affected me…Lee manages to make every voice distinct…It is Joy’s complexity which keeps you reading…[A] wonderful book.

Stylist

A black comedy of exuberance and bite … original, and brilliantly executed; the characters’ voices … ventriloquised with flair … This is the wittiest, most addictive piece of literary yuppie-bashing since Martin Amis’s Money. Lee is a writer to keep an eye on.

Independent

A major new voice in British fiction.

Guardian

Lee constructs office scenes easily, weaving together numerous characters and dialogues with flair…the writing crackles.

Independent on Sunday

Lee’s writing is witty and engaging, containing something of the wearied disgust of Raymond Chandler’s prose…These four voices confiding in the counsellor are entertainingly distinct…The novel’s outstanding achievement, however, is the central, spiralling narrative that Jonathan Lee threads among these personal accounts: the intimate story of how Joy came to fall, a forensic portrayal of despair that shows Lee to be an exceptional, brave prose stylist. The dark revelations in the book’s final pages are disturbing while not gratuitous, but Lee also allows some credible room for optimism among these cluttered lives. Funny and humane, Joy is an enormously impressive piece of storytelling

Tom Williams, Literary Review

Lee's the real deal - a British writer on the cusp of greatness. This novel follows the aftermath of lawyer Joy Stephen's apparent suicide. The corporate and personal explode in a brilliant powerful dissection of modern Britain.

Henry Sutton, The Mirror

A brilliant book... Jonathan Lee is one of those rare, agile writers who can take your breath away.

Catherine O’Flynn, author of What Was Lost

A tense and disturbing novel.

Richard Susskind, The Times

an excellent novel… A harrowing look at the sleazy underbelly of the corporate world that never pulls its punches.

Alex Preston, FHM

Jonathan Lee’s second novel, Joy charts the final day in the life of a high-flying young lawyer. Lee writes with extraordinary vividness, with prose so sharply defined it takes your breath away.

Observer

Very stylish, observant and oh so spiky, this is an incredible, often uncomfortable novel that you just can't put down... Modern, vibrant, funny and dark 5/5

thebookbag.com

With its supple prose, ingenious structure, wit and slow-burn sympathy, Joy is a sly miracle of a novel.

A.D. Miller