In the first year of the 20th Century, a young Englishman returns home from the Boer War. Disillusioned with Empire and fearful for the soul of Albion, he sets out on a pilgrimage into the West Country, determined to identify the key elements of the English character that they may be forever preserved.

In the present day, a young London entrepreneur, owner of the ‘cultural consultancy’ Authenticity™, defines his contemporaries through their consumer choices with bewildering accuracy and smells money when he discovers a hot new talent called Nobody who has recorded a hip-hop version of the classic hymn ‘Jerusalem’.

His father, meanwhile, a junior minister in a failing government, is sent to Africa to deal with the continent’s latest tin pot despot. He is as confident of success as he is ambitious of what that success will mean for his career.

Unfailingly relevant, politically astute, moving and funny, Jerusalem is a loving portrait of Englishness as it never was, isn’t now and, hopefully, never will be.

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‘Bitingly, laugh-out-loud satirical, politically sharp, absolutely on-the-money in portraying social class niches, Jerusalem is, quite simply, a must read’
Daily Mail

‘Patrick Neate’s colourful satirical writing has always stood at some über-cool crossroads between pop culture, social theory, racial politics and good old-fashioned belief in the power of storytelling.  Jerusalem…is his most accomplished… It’s a tricky thing to keep so many balls spinning but Neate finally makes it look easy’
Book of the Week, Metro

‘Think David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas…compelling’
Thelondonpaper

‘Neate brutally satirises contemporary politics and culture and examines the long shadow Britain has left in its former colonies’
Word magazine

‘[A] funny, emotional and beautifully observed tale looks at family, friendship and justice courtesy of colourful characters that sing right off the page’
Bella magazine

‘The diary of a local gentleman’,

21 August 1900 (Empire Museum, Bristol), anon.

It is strange to me that I should feel compelled to begin a journal only on the eve of my departure from this God-forsaken place where, truth be told, no civilized man should ever have made his home (and increasingly, I fear, none did). How can I explain myself ? Let me just say that this conflict has not lacked for chronicles and, for my part, I have been paralysed by the most peculiar funk.

Although I make no claims to valour, many have been made on my behalf. So, should my words be read at some future time by Mother, Father, Catherine or, God willing, my child or grandchild, it is important that they – that is to say, ‘you’ – should not consider me coward either, for this is not that sort of confession. You must believe that I have served Queen and country as I always meant to, with every muscle in my body, every facet of my wit and wholehearted passion. Ask any who served under me and they will tell you the same. Indeed, examine my record and you will see I was offered invalid’s passage home three months since, but refused it that I might take up this grim post at Standmere.

For my actions at Paardeberg, some called me a hero. But they were not true military men who know the chaos of battle and the unpredictability of the desperate human spirit. Find a dozen sweats to tell you about a hero and you may be surprised to hear as many different descriptions. One may tell you about a fine fellow who was one of the first to fall to a Mauser’s bullet; another, a reckless type who hadn’t the imagination to think himself a fool. But, should you ask a real old fundi, he’ll tell you that bravery is short-lived, fear a constant companion and that the greatest challenge facing any hero is to leave heroism behind, to reject coarse lusts in favour of the subtle sympathies prerequisite in a man of God, science and peace.

For my part, of course, I can only tell you what I know, which is this: he is a hero who confronts the truth honestly, off the battlefield as well as on it, who looks terror squarely in the eye and is man enough to recognize the face that stares back at him as none other than his own. It would be remiss, and render this journal unworthy, therefore, if I did not admit that I have been fearful, impotent even, to record the true horror of this place and the dark reflection it throws upon myself, my superiors and the whole of Her Majesty’s great Empire. To do so now is my only hope of respite and redemption.

My initial intention for this journal is simply to record some of what I have witnessed. Perhaps that is all I will manage. My wound is festering and Nurse O’Brian – a fine Irish lass but no medic – fears the infection may spread with fatal consequence before I can reach a Cape surgeon. I must confess I am not unduly perturbed by this and I am prepared to abandon myself to Fate (for there’s no evidence of our Lord’s presence here) – such is my mind. Indeed, I have come to regard the state of my gammy leg as metaphoric of this whole bloody mess. As my wound is to me, so is this war to the Empire. It was initially painful but no more than that. Now, through a lack of care, competence and conscience, it may yet threaten life itself.

If Fate does indeed spare me, however, and carries me home on the breath of its mockery, I believe I must use this journal to begin a thorough investigation of the English nature. It was Kipling who wrote, ‘What should they know of England who only England know?’ Never before have I felt the import of a general question so personally.

I am a proud subject of a great nation, a nation that has built the widest Empire man has seen and brought civilization, Christianity and prosperity to every territory it touches. Such achievements would surely not have been possible without the distinctive attributes of the English character: singularity of purpose, rigour of planning, compassion for the unfortunate and humility before God. And yet here at Standmere, I see no evidence of purpose, planning, compassion or humility, only chaos and inhumanity.

In my despair, I have spent some time considering the customs of the kaffir. For all his savagery and heathenism, there is much to admire. His society, for example, is organized on a principle he calls ‘umbuntu’, which means, I am told, ‘we are people through each other’. I cannot express how painful it was for me to hear such simplicity! For I fear that in this place we have become less than human, less even than the Negro.

When I return home, therefore, I will –

[Fire damage has rendered the following two pages of the journal illegible]

– but it was the thirst that was most terrible.

I have always been the hardy sort and I managed better than many, though my throat was painfully parched and my

tongue cracked and blistered. But some of my men were awfully afflicted with blindness and fever and some even took to drinking their own water, a copper-brown colour and noisome too.

If you thought about it an instant, this battle swiftly highlighted the absurdities of human conflict. There were Cronje´’s Boers on one bank of the Modder and here were we on the other, both sides half crazed with thirst as a thousand gallons passed between us every second beneath the crack of the guns.

By the evening of 20 February it was insufferable. We had already lost more than a hundred men and the enemy about the same, but it was water that dominated our every waking thought and the increasing frenzy of our dreams in snatched moments of sleep. I had my men on half rations and they must have been hungry but none had the saliva to swallow even half an ounce of biscuit. Such thirst leads to a certain kind of mania and it was in such a state that I decided I’d prefer to die sated than shrivelled. I summoned Macintosh to my quarters and had him rustle up a dozen canteens.

Honestly expecting failure, I did not tell the men what ruse I had planned, but my sergeant was keen as mustard from the off – the wholehearted, instinctive sort who seems perennially primed for a spot of derring-do.

The moonlight might have been daylight to Mac and me, the way our hearts raced, but we made it to the riverbank easily enough and began to fill the canteens one by one. We could hear the enemy on the other side, yapping in that guttural way of theirs. I was quite sure we’d be seen but Mac was calmness personified and we had those tins brimming in no time. Only then did we realize that lugging twelve up a steep ridge between the pair of us was a task to challenge Hercules.

Mac hissed that we should leave four behind but, in my crazed state, I could not agree. What was going through my mind was this: my men would be back in the thick of it at first light, killing and being killed, and I couldn’t stand to see another fall in silence, the howl of his soul strangled in his dehydrated throat. If my men wanted to scream, they would scream.

We would have made it had I not tripped at the very top of the ridge and dropped one canteen that bounced noisily down the slope. Mac reached down for me and pulled me up with those thick pig-farmer’s arms that had spent a lifetime hauling swine from one pen to another. But the bullets were already flying and one bit into my left shoulder and another into my left calf.

As God is my witness, I would have happily lain down to die with nothing for company but a drink of water, but Mac dragged me up saying, ‘Come on, sir. Not far now.’ So, I stumbled all the way back to camp, still carrying five canteens, blind with pain but fearful that, if I fell, I must suffer the indignity of returning to my men under the arm of a giant Scotsman, squealing like a piglet.

The men made quite a fuss of us that night as they drank their fill. My sergeant recounted the story a dozen times, embellishing my bravery a little more and ignoring his own with each telling. The next morning I was stretchered out on the convoy for Bloemfontein leaving my chaps in the care of a well-intentioned but green young fellow by the name of Hay. I heard later that he was dead before sunset.

Patrick Neate on writing about music:

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture? I'm beginning to think it's a whole lot tougher; especially since I learned the windmill and the chicken shack. Nonetheless, people keep doing it - myself included - and sometimes well. Five books about music I've recently enjoyed are:

Ego Trip's Book Of Rap Lists
A book of lists about rap that includes things like ' Lyrics That Hurt People's Feelings' and '5 Records That Changed Funkmaster Flex's Life' - what's not to like?

Kill Your Friends by John Niven
It's a memoir disguised as a novel, about the music industry in the 1990s (a time when I was a music journalist). It's disgusting, shallow and very funny; which is pretty much how I remember it.

The Magic Spring' by Richard Lewis
Richard Lewis used to be my next door neighbour. This is his pilgrimage around England to find the heart of the national character in folk music; an idea as old as Cecil Sharp and, therefore, one I felt ok about borrowing for one of the characters in 'Jerusalem', my new novel.

Louis Armstrong: An Extraordinary Life by Laurence Bergreen
My favourite biography. It's breadth and scholarship are just extraordinary, and the facts of Louis's life are beyond fiction.

Culture Is Our Weapon by Patrick Neate and Damian Platt
Is it cheeky to recommend one of your own books? Well, I have lately read it again, in preparation for its American publication (at last!). It's an account of Rio's drug wars and how a charity called AfroReggae helps people use music to escape. I'm proud of it.