My Cousin the Writer, by Paul Binding

This tale of a radio soap makes post-war Britain sparkle. Michael Arditti tunes in with delight

The late Queen Mother, for many years a devotee of the radio soap opera Mrs Dale's Diary, is reputed to have declared that it was the only way to discover what the middle classes were thinking. Anyone with a similar interest in the ideas and behaviour of Fifties England could do worse than read Paul Binding's splendid new novel, which focuses on the creators, characters and fans of a radio soap opera.

Like Mrs Dale's Diary, "The Parkers" is set in a prosperous suburban community. It too tells of a professional and his family (here, a vicar) and is introduced by its matriarch, Elizabeth Parker, described as having the most famous voice in the country after the Queen. Every day she shares the stories of friends and neighbours, who include a Scottish doctor and Welsh hotelier, along with a famous writer, a termagant church worker, a shy curate and two rude mechanicals, a cleaning lady and gardener.

The series is the brainchild of Verity Orchard, whose whimsical persona and propensity to weep over Victorian ballads belie a will of steel. She lives in Dorset with her stage-designer husband, Charles, who has a dangerous passion for young men, and Nesta, an eccentric housekeeper, who keeps goats, insults the guests and is – not altogether convincingly – presented as the moral conscience of the book.

Into their lives walks Bruno, a disaffected 18-year-old living with his aunt and young cousin in a Midlands town while being treated for TB. Bruno, abandoned by his mother and estranged from his father, finds "The Parkers" a source of both solace and security. A chance meeting with Charles – whom he shamelessly seduces – leads to an invitation to spend the weekend in Dorset. There, while Charles fantasises about Bruno's body and Verity studies him as a representative of the younger generation, Bruno meanwhile dreams of becoming a celebrated radio scriptwriter. Needless to say, nothing proceeds according to plan.

My Cousin the Writer is a rich and engrossing novel, as original in its structure – which mixes first-person narrative with letters, school essays, New Statesman articles and, above all, snippets of radio scripts – as in its content. This combines a classic Bildungsroman with a persuasive analysis of post-war Britain, in which the Parkers' move from leafy suburbia to an impersonal new town mirrors the changes in the nation.