Speakers: Benjamin Markovits, Alex Clark

Paul Essinger, a tennis professional in his 30s, is about to play his final US Open. The bookies give him 1,200-1 odds on winning the title. Anxiety-ridden, comically unaware and boiling with tension, each member of the Essinger family — Paul included — is painfully trying to unpick an idea of themselves from the tableau of upper-middle-class life they present. Reflecting on their German-Jewish ancestry, Essinger senior ruefully ascribes their good fortune to ‘immigrants’ luck’. Benjamin Markovits’ new novel, A Weekend in New York, intertwines the politics of the household and the state to compile a wry portrait of the way we live now.