At first glance Sean O’Brien’s new novel appears to focus on England’s devotion to the past. Even its title carries the sense and long-sustained rhythm of things going on as before. As if to underscore the point, Once Again Assembled Here is set in the autumn of 1968, a year often portrayed in fiction to describe a revolt into the new, but which in O’Brien’s novel merely serves as a reminder that whatever ideas were being cooked up elsewhere, here tradition and continuity would prevail.