In the privileged London enclaves which are the pied-a-terre of Alexandra Shulman’s second novel, anything but the most first world problems seem a very long way away.
The Tennisons are “a couple at the centre of things”, their lives a dizzying succession of private views and fundraising galas. But when the scions of an illustrious Italian fashion house come to visit, cracks appear in the glamorous facade.
Teo and Antonella Fullardi are not so much the parrots of Shulman’s title as cuckoos in the nest: enfants terribles who, with millennial insouciance, proceed to destroy the fragile equilibrium of the Tennisons’ lives.
As editor of British Vogue, Shulman’s credentials for anatomising the super-rich are impeccable, and her prose buzzes with pitch-perfect modernity. The Parrots whirls through parties and personal crises with perceptiveness and brio, underscored throughout by a gentle satire that exposes its subjects’ excesses but is careful not to bite.
The Parrots is published by Fig Tree (£14.99). Click here to buy it for £11.99
