The aim of this book is not just to outline the developments that led to the decision by the people of Great Britain to leave the European Union on 24 June 2016, the endless discussions on television and the papers providing ample coverage of the decision and its implications.
Six years later, the process is not over yet at least as regards Northern Ireland and the latest developments might lead to unexpected developments, we're told.
The book by well-known author and satirist Jonathan Coe, highlights the steps that led Britain to take the unexpected step to leave the EU - the riots in London and elsewhere in August 2011, the fabulous opening ceremony of the London Olympics in July 2012, the general election in 2015, then the ramping up of the Brexit campaign culminating in the murder of young MP Jo Cox and then B-day itself.
But around these events the author weaves the stories of quite a number of people, all loosely related to each other and one can see how the Brexit decision impacted their individual lives. The book shows the complicated lives people live (obviously not just in the UK but everywhere) - people break up relationships and marriages, people fall in love or drift apart, people move or change jobs, and so on.
After the decision was taken, some moved abroad, some changed their jobs and some saw their innermost convictions carry the day. The key issue was the foreigners in the country. Ever since the "Rivers of Blood " speech by Enoch Powell so many years ago, people in middle England lived in terror they could end up a minority in their own country.
This is what fuelled Brexit but it was, as we say today, fake news. First of all Powell was speaking about the people allowed in from countries of the Commonwealth, not the EU. It is true that membership of the EU allowed free entry into the UK of Polish builders etc. but on the other hand British young people could move, study and live in Europe.
The Polish builders, the Estonian waiters and others were never the problem they were made to be.
On the other hand, I distinctly remember the pre-referendum days and the patriotic music played on the radio. It is true - there is a distinctively British mood which cannot be replicated elsewhere, the typical British countryside, the thwack of ball hit by the bat, the relaxed conviviality. The Last Night of the Proms. Rule Britannia. And of course Jerusalem.
Other countries have their own ways of living, without having to exit the EU. Who is right and who is wrong?
Again I repeat: the aim of this book is not to explain how Brexit came to be accepted but rather to describe the lives of a group of friends living in the years when Britain chose to loosen its ties with Europe.
Six years after the vote, Europe has not collapsed, nor has Britain (although some would question this), many EU nationals have left. It now costs more for British nationals to visit Europe and for British goods to enter Europe.
The world has moved on and so has Britain. New problems beset the world, Covid especially and now this Russian invasion of Ukraine with so much violence and mayhem. Brexit has become something of the past.
The man who changed tack and led Britain out, Boris Johnson, is now hanging on for dear life.
But Coe's book, as I explained at the beginning, is more than what led to Brexit. We may describe it as narrating the lives of people loosely related to each other during a time of national stress.