Winner of the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature
Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction
Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize
Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Shortlisted for the Femina Prize
Shortlisted for the Precious Lifestyle Award for Book of the Year
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction
Longlisted for the Glass Bell Award
Nominated for the Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle
A book of the year in The New Yorker, Financial Times and New Statesman
A best summer read in The Guardian, Metro, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, Elle, Daily Mail, The Pool and The Times
Recipient of an Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Award (funded by the National Lottery)

Two couples find themselves at a moment of reckoning. Melissa has a new baby and doesn’t want to let it change her. Damian has lost his father and intends not to let it get to him. Michael is still in love with Melissa but can’t quite get close enough to her to stay faithful. Stephanie just wants to live a normal, happy life on the commuter belt with Damian and their three children but his bereavement is getting in the way.

Set in London against the backdrop of Barack Obama’s historic election victory, Ordinary People is an intimate, immersive study of identity and parenthood, sex and grief, friendship and aging, and the fragile architecture of love.