The Elected Member

Summary

Set in the close-knit Jewish community of London's East End, the novel centres on a once-brilliant son whose addiction and breakdown expose the fault lines within his family. Rubens writes with compassionate economy, using the family's anguish to probe how communities choose a scapegoat and project their failures onto the most vulnerable member. Her portrait of guilt, faith and parental love remains one of the most piercing in postwar British fiction.