Description

Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction
Shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Booker Prize

‘Brilliantly done . . . the period detail never overwhelms the simple, passionate human story. It’s a tour-de-force of hints, clues and dropped threads’ Suzi Feay, Independent on Sunday

Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked out streets, illicit liaisons, sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941, The Night Watch is the work of a truly brilliant and compelling storyteller.
This is the story of four Londoners – three women and a young man with a past, drawn with absolute truth and intimacy. Kay, who drove an ambulance during the war and lived life at full throttle, now dresses in mannish clothes and wanders the streets with a restless hunger, searching . . . Helen, clever, sweet, much-loved, harbours a painful secret . . . Viv, glamour girl, is stubbornly, even foolishly loyal, to her soldier lover . . . Duncan, an apparent innocent, has had his own demons to fight during the war. Their lives, and their secrets connect in sometimes startling ways. War leads to strange alliances . . .

Tender, tragic and beautifully poignant, set against the backdrop of feats of heroism both epic and ordinary, here is a novel of relationships that offers up subtle surprises and twists. The Night Watch is thrilling. A towering achievement.

Publisher Review

The Night Watch is sharply and compassionately observed, richly coloured, and compelling to read -- Michele Roberts * Independent * this outstandingly gifted novelist releases her imagination into her most compelling depiction yet -- Peter Kemp * Sunday Times * 'Brilliantly done . . . the period detail never overwhelms the simple, passionate human story. It's a tour-de-force of hints, clues and dropped threads -- Suzi Feay * Independent on Sunday * The Night Watch is a truthful, lovely book that needs no conjuring tricks to make you want to read it again -- Philip Hensher * Observer *