The novel intricately explores the interplay of past, present, and future through its structure and themes, highlighting London as a city of temporal and social complexity, especially in the context of post-Brexit changes.
U Rahbek emphasizes how Linda Grant’s novel uses its structure to reflect layered temporalities, showing how London embodies disjunctions between past and present. The review highlights two key moments in the book that illustrate these tensions and praises the author’s depiction of migration and gentrification as vital forces reshaping the city and its communities. Rahbek also notes the novel’s engagement with contemporary political anxieties, particularly Brexit’s impact on society and the concept of ‘unwanted populations.’ This approach reveals Grant’s novel as a thoughtful meditation on time, place, and social change in modern London.
Quick quotes
A Stranger City demonstrates how Grant illuminates such comprehensive questions about time – and place.
Human migration revitalises the street: ‘The essential Englishness of the street’ is ‘permanently breached’ in favour of ethnic diversity.
The nation deals with what the novel’s narrator calls ‘its unwanted population’ post-Brexit.