Elizabeth Day’s 2025 novel, One of Us, is a political satire and sequel to her 2018 book, The Party. The story centers on Martin Gilmour, a cynical art history lecturer who, years earlier, was exiled from the wealthy Fitzmaurice family after taking the blame for a fatal car crash caused by his charismatic best friend, Ben Fitzmaurice. When Martin unexpectedly receives an invitation to the funeral of Ben’s sister, Fliss, he is drawn back into the family’s corrupt orbit, forcing him to navigate a world of secrets, ambition, and shifting allegiances.

A journalist, broadcaster, and author, Elizabeth Day is known for exploring themes of success, failure, and social dynamics, most notably in her popular podcast and bestselling nonfiction series, How to Fail. In One of Us, she turns her focus to the British elite, examining The Fickle Nature of Loyalty in Elite Circles and The Corrupting Nature of Wealth and Status. The novel is set against the backdrop of contemporary Britain, tapping into cultural anxieties surrounding scandal-driven media, social media-fueled “cancel culture,” and the insular “Westminster bubble” of political power. Through its intersecting storylines, the novel critiques the way characters engage in Hiding the Authentic Self With a Public-Facing Persona to survive in a world where reputation is paramount, and morality is dispensable.

This guide refers to the 2026 Viking e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of addiction, substance use, sexual content, sexual violence, sexual harassment, rape, child sexual abuse, gender discrimination, antigay bias, bullying, disordered eating, mental illness, cursing, child death, and death by suicide.

Plot Summary

Set in contemporary England, the novel is a multi-perspective political satire about class, power, and betrayal within the orbit of the Fitzmaurice family, a wealthy, well-connected dynasty whose buried secrets threaten to destroy them.

Martin Gilmour, a sardonic, emotionally guarded art history lecturer approaching 50, narrates his sections in the first person, addressing the reader directly. Raised solely by his cold, bitter mother, Martin attended boarding school as a scholarship student. There, he attached himself to the charismatic scion Ben Fitzmaurice. Martin was secretly in love with Ben, and their friendship became the defining relationship of his life. As an undergraduate at Cambridge, Ben drunkenly drove a car that killed a young woman named Vicky Dillane. Martin, who was sober in the back seat, took the blame, and the Fitzmaurice family paid him off for years to keep quiet. When Ben later cast Martin out of his social circle, Martin told the police the truth, but the Fitzmaurices used their connections to make the investigation disappear. Now suspended from his university for using the term “orientalism” in a lecture, a remark a student called racist, Martin is attending mandated therapy. Among his mail, he finds an unexpected invitation to the funeral of Ben’s older sister, Lady Felicity “Fliss” Fitzmaurice, who died at 53 in Bali.

Serena, Ben’s wife, narrates from the Wurttensee Clinic, an exclusive Austrian health retreat, where she grapples with menopause, a fading sense of identity, and a marriage hollowed out by Ben’s serial infidelities. Raised by a father who tied her worth to her beauty, she married Ben shortly after her father’s death. Before leaving for the clinic, she walked in on Ben receiving oral sex from her friend Violet. It was Serena, not Ben, who secretly sent Martin the funeral invitation, motivated by revenge.

Richard Take, a middle-class backbench MP recently forced to resign after being caught watching pornography on his work computer, provides another perspective. His wife, Hannah, a formidable lawyer, has left him. Richard accepts a spot on a reality TV show called Shit Happens!, hoping to rehabilitate his image. He is thrilled when he receives an invitation to Fliss Fitzmaurice's funeral.

Ben and Serena’s 17-year-old daughter, Cosima, despises her parents’ privilege, particularly her father’s role as Energy Secretary. She has secretly joined Oblivion Oil, a radical environmental protest group. During a nighttime blockade at an oil terminal, the group’s charismatic leader, River, falls from a tanker and is gravely injured. Cosima watches in horror, then reluctantly leaves for Fliss’s funeral.

Fliss’s voice appears in brief chapters narrated from the afterlife. In life, she was the unhappiest Fitzmaurice: Starved of parental attention and devastated by the childhood death of her younger brother Magnus, she spiraled through decades of addiction and failed reinventions, always reaching for the next escape that might save her.

At the funeral, Ben delivers a eulogy portraying Fliss’s death as a tragic accident caused by addiction. However, Derek, a Black man who befriended Fliss in Bali, tells Martin that Fliss killed herself and left a note. Derek insists that the Fitzmaurice family drove Fliss to take her own life. Ben dismisses Derek and proposes that he and Martin reconcile. Martin accepts, calculating that proximity to Ben will help him uncover the truth.

Serena begins an affair with Andrew Jarvis, Ben’s closest friend and financial backer. At a hotel before a charity gala, Jarvis holds Serena down and has sex with her without her consent. She retreats to the bathroom afterward and tries not to think about it. At the gala, Ben announces his candidacy for the Conservative Party leadership without having told Serena, naming Richard Take as his first backer. Serena plays the role of the supportive wife while privately feeling betrayed.

Cosima learns River survived his fall and visits him in the hospital. He reveals he is an undercover police officer who has seen files about Fliss’s death that reveal far more than the family admits. Days later, he sends Cosima the files in an encrypted email.

Fliss’s extended narrative reveals that after hitting rock bottom, she called Jarvis for help, as he had once been kind to her. He took her to his flat and made her tea, which tasted strange. She passed out and woke to find Jarvis raping her. She called Ben, who drove her home but refused to believe Jarvis raped her, citing her history of unreliable claims, including her disclosure that their grandfather had sexually abused her as a child. The police also dismissed Fliss’s report of the crime, stating that she had left it too late to gather evidence. She fled to Bali and tried to build a new life, but the memories grew unbearable. She drank, swallowed pills, and walked into the sea.

At a family dinner at Tipworth Priory, the Fitzmaurice estate, Cosima secretly gives Martin a link to the police files. Ben then reveals he has outed Martin as gay to a journalist to demonstrate diversity on his leadership team. This betrayal solidifies Martin’s resolve. He meets Richard Take at a London restaurant and hands him the evidence: the police report of Fliss’s rape allegation, a memo detailing Ben’s instruction to suppress the investigation, and Fliss’s suicide note. Martin appeals to Richard’s ambition, arguing that they are both outsiders exploited by the same ruling class.

After Oblivion Oil storms a British Museum exhibition and Serena recognizes Cosima among the masked protesters, the family fractures further. Cosima flees to Martin’s cottage, and they confirm their alliance. Serena ends her affair with Jarvis and retreats to the Austrian clinic, where Ben tracks her down. They negotiate a pragmatic reconciliation: She will publicly support his bid to become Prime Minister in exchange for concessions regarding their living arrangements.

On live television, Richard withdraws his support for Ben, announces he has handed files to the police, and declares his own candidacy for the Conservative leadership. Hours later, Ben and Jarvis are arrested: Ben for bribing police officers, Jarvis on additional suspicion of sexual assault.

Cosima flies to Bali to volunteer with a beach cleanup charity, choosing the location to feel closer to Fliss. Months later, she reads a long, confessional email from Ben in which he takes responsibility for covering up Vicky Dillane’s death and for failing to believe Fliss. She video-calls her parents and sees Ben aged and diminished, wearing an ankle tag. They laugh together for the first time in a long while. Cosima makes a private pact: To keep her own role in his downfall secret, she must forgive her father.

Richard Take becomes Prime Minister while Martin, his revenge accomplished, finds his life drained of purpose. When the charges against Jarvis are dropped, Ben assumes that it was Jarvis who betrayed him. Martin begins a relationship with Alexander, a private banker he met at a Tipworth dinner, and they move in together. He visits Ben regularly in prison, where Ben asks Martin to be Cosima’s godfather. Martin happily accepts, glad that his former closeness with Ben is restored. Eighteen months later, Martin is relaxing by a hotel pool when he sees Andrew Jarvis. Jarvis smiles and walks toward him.