The City Changes Its Face
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
A MUST-READ NOVEL OF 2025 IN THE GUARDIAN,FINANCIAL TIMES,IRISH TIMES,SUNDAY TIMES,STYLIST, AND MANY OTHERS
'One of the finest writers at work today.' ANNE ENRIGHT
'McBride is a cartographer of the secret self, guiding us towards hidden treasure.' CLAIRE KILROY
'Eimear McBride does extraordinary things with language . . . she breaks every rule in the grammar book and gleefully gets away with it.'GUARDIAN
'A typical McBride work. Praise doesn't come much higher.'FINANCIAL TIMES
So, all would be grand then, as far as the eye could see. Which it was, for a while. Up until the city, remembering its knives and forks, invited itself in to dine.
It's 1995. Outside their grimy window, the city rushes by. But in the flat there is only Stephen and Eily. Their bodies, the tangled sheets. Unpacked boxes stacked in the kitchen and the total obsession of new love.
Eighteen months later, the flat feels different. Love is merging with reality. Stephen's teenage daughter has re-appeared, while Eily has made a choice, the consequences of which she cannot outrun. Now they face a reckoning for all that's been left unspoken - emotions, secrets and ambitions. Tonight, if they are to find one another again, what must be said aloud?
Love rallies against life. Time tells truths. The city changes its face.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this poignant and evocative sequel to The Lesser Bohemians, McBride continues the story of Irish drama student Eily and older actor and filmmaker Stephen, who have moved in together in London. In the summer of 1995, Stephen travels to Vancouver to spend time with his estranged daughter, Grace, who's only two years younger than Eily. When Grace visits London that winter, the three struggle to adjust to their new roles, with Stephen afraid that the abuse he suffered as a child will affect his parenting, and Eily having trouble getting used to Grace's presence and claim on her father. A year later, in sections labeled "Now," Stephen labors over an autobiographical film, Eily tries to figure out her personal and professional future, and the couple approaches a cataclysm that seriously threatens their relationship. McBride is slow to dole out key information across the alternating timelines ("Now," "First Summer," "First Winter", "Now, Imagined Earlier," etc.), which can be frustrating, but her lyricism is on full display in Eily's breathless and captivating narration, which dances between thought and action: "Thinking of your fingers, I arrived at my body's burning to smoke and went from there to cigarettes." Readers will be swept along by this entrancing tale of love and its many challenges.
