10 Literary Books Set In The 1980s

Top Ten Tuesday is currently hosted by artsyreadergirl and has weekly topics for bloggers to respond to and share. Click the link for more info and to read more submitted posts!

This week, the prompt is Books Set in/Take Place During X, and I chose the 1980s. I have always had a fascination with the 1980s. I think in part it’s because it was an outrageous decade with lots of bright colours, mad fashion and fun boppy, pop music and synth! I love 80s music!

But also, when it comes to literature, I think it interests me for the same reasons that I have a fascination with the 18th Century, that is, the wealthiest people in society were loudly and unashamedly out of control, and it was grotesque. It does feel like we might be in a new period of this right now, doesn’t it?

In the third year of my English Lit. degree, we got to choose some modules and I went for one on 1980s Britain. I loved it, it taught me a lot, and it brought me to some of my favourite books. Some of these are books I read in the course of that Uni module, but there are also plenty I haven’t read and would like to one day.

1. The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

I read this at university. It’s a beauty-obsessed, middle-class young gay man – Nick Guest – who has moved in with the family of his university friend post-graduation. The Dad is a Tory MP in Thatcher’s government, and they live in Kensington. These guys are political class rich arseholes, you get the idea. Nick enjoys his introduction to high society and the London gay scene of the 1980s (sex and drugs), which, as a modern reader will guess, inevitably leads to the AIDS crisis. It has been a long time since I read it, and I’ve forgotten the finer details, but it’s still somehow left an impression in the back of my mind.

2. What A Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe

This is one of the most fun books I’ve read at university, and I’d love to re-read it at some point. This is an over-the-top, savage social satire. It follows the lives of the Winshaws, a powerful – greedy, corrupt and all-around vile – family cosily wrapped up in Thatcher’s government. They are each making the most of the 1980s, bleeding and squeezing more money out of every avenue they can exploit – privatisation of the NHS, the grubby art world, arms dealing, the stock exchange, and processed food.

3. Money by Martin Amis

You could pick almost anything written by Martin Amis in the 1980s. I picked this one because I’ve read it, but I think London Fields would also fit the bill nicely. I’ve talked about this book before (see my list of unreliable narrators), it really made an impression on me when I read it for Uni! This book is not a pleasant reading experience; the protagonist, John Self, is a disgusting person who represents all the worst excesses of the 1980s. His point of view is manic, chaotic and nauseating. And trigger warnings for pretty much everything.

4. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

This was published in 1985, though the setting is not clear, I think it counts as an 1980s book. It’s a semi-autobiographical novel based on the author’s experience growing up in Lancashire. The main character is a young girl, named Jeanette, who grows up within an evangelical church, with a zealot mother, but finds herself attracted to another girl. I remember this being on reading lists, but I never needed to read it at university for any of my seminars. I did enjoy The Passion by this author, maybe one day I’ll finally read this.

5. The Child in Time by Ian McEwan

I’ve never read this one, but it was published in 1987 and offers commentary on the period of social and political change that characterised the time. This serves as the backdrop to this story of a father who has lost his child after she was abducted from the supermarket, and themes of loss and grief. I understand this book sees McEwan experiment with magical realism, not a device I’d associate with him, so I am intrigued to finally read this.

6. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

Time for an American novel! My Uni model was very much British Lit. under Thatcherism, so this never crossed my path. This is another satirical novel, set in 1980s New York and centres on three main characters: a WASP bond trader, a Jewish ADA and a British expat. journalist. Apparently, it was originally published, in the style of Charles Dickens, serialised in the Rolling Stone before it was worked into a novel. I would like to read this!

7. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

This has to be on here, didn’t it? Everyone knows who Patrick Bateman is, and he’s very 1980s Wall Street! I periodically consider reading this, but I don’t know, man, I just don’t think I’ll enjoy being in his POV.. I’m not really up for reading about horrific torture and murder, especially of women. I have seen the movie, though!

8. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

Now we’re in 1980s Scotland for a book I have read. This book also has horrifying descriptions of (animal) torture and deeply disturbing shit in it, like child murder. Protagonist Frank lives on an isolated island with his father, and he’s a sadistic yet disturbingly self-aware teenage pyscho. Reading this isn’t easy, but it’s an intriguing layered tangle of mysteries, and Frank’s voice has naivety and sometimes an amusingly pedantic tone. By the end, you realise he has been through a lot, and much of it because of the social attitudes of the time and setting. Frank is a product of his time. I don’t think there is anything else quite like it…

9. White Noise by Don de Lillo

I’ve seen this described as the 1980s distilled. It was published in 1985, and centres on a typical Middle American family living their lives amid 80s hyper-consumerism. Then a lethal black chemical cloud, unleashed by an industrial accident, floats over their lives, an “airborne toxic event” that is a more urgent and visible version of the white noise engulfing the Gladneys—the radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, and TV murmurings that constitute the music of American magic and dread. I bought this on Kindle a while ago, and I really must get to reading it!

10. Bad Behaviour by Mary Gatskill

This short story collection was published in 1988 and is contemporarily set in the 80s. I believe they’re mostly set in Manhattan, New York and focus on characters on the lower end of the social ladder, with themes to do with sex, love, drugs and obsession. This collection includes the short story Secretary which was adapted into that movie with James Spader and Maggie Gyllenall. I’ve never read any Gatskill but one day I must get around to it.