Everyone is Watching

I loved Megan Bradbury’s debut novel, Everyone Is Watching, a book ostensibly about a century or so of life in New York, but really about how cities themselves are works of communal action and art, and about how, even in the most draconian and reactionary of times, the vibrancy of these two things will light, reveal, challenge and reshape the fabrics of where and how we live. It’s a beating heart of a novelAli Smith, Guardian

A highly original and elegantly written debut . . . a genuine attempt to evolve the form of the novel while trying to find a new way to tell a person's story . . . one has to applaud the great ambition of this book . . . There's a hypnotic effect to the prose and a sense that the author both understands and loves this most complicated of cities . . . a fascinating gift . . . [Megan Bradbury] is an extraordinary talent.John Boyne, The Irish Times

A kaleidoscopic dreamscape of New York seen through the eyes of some of its most celebrated inhabitants . . . immersive and compelling . . . hypnotic . . . dirty, dangerous and delicious, this is a novel that understands the cost of contact and bets on it anywayOlivia Laing, New Statesman

I have been haunted by Megan Bradbury's debut, Everyone Is Watching, ever since I read an early copy months ago. Through the lives of four historical New Yorkers, it dramatises more powerfully than any other novel I know the interdependence of artistic making and urban lifeGarth Greenwell, Guardian