The fiery age-gap, on again, off again relationship first seen in The Lesser Bohemians has taken a sombre, yet no less intense turn in Eimear McBride’s follow-up novel, The City Changes Its Face. Stephen and Eily are still in love, but are still battling their demons while love’s first flush has fizzled out slightly, “…this dulling despondence we’ve recently learnt to how to share. Its dampening pace. The clog it makes in the air…”. When sex is no longer a short-term fix, what do you fall back on? And will intense talking and brutal self-examination get them where they want to go? And what happens if they get somewhere they weren’t planning to get to? Where the ghosts of the past are waiting to take their revenge? There’s a lot of questions for Stephen and Eily to get their heads round. And answers? Maybe not as forthcoming or as easy as they want. “You do know a thing about dodging questions and were, after all, accomplished at compartments until I pulled out the drawers”. With its chunks of dialogue, screenplay and what almost reads like blank verse Eimear McBride takes you straight to the heart of a relationship which has always tottered and teetered. The sympathetic reader wants the best for Eily and Stephen. Whether they get it or not remains open, or possibly depends on whether a third volume is written at some point in future. Compelling, intense, thrilling, this is a seriously good novel by a writer at the top of her game. Totally recommended.

The City Changes Its Face

– Eimear McBride publ. by Faber £9.99

Steven Long