One of the best novels I've read about London for some time. The choice of the word “stranger” by Grant is very deliberate, implying both noun and comparative adjective. London evidently is a city of strangers, and Grant depicts London as a place of atomisation, unexpected community and full of chance encounter. Evidently its heterogeneity and multiplicity help make London what it is. A Stranger City is also a lament against Brexit. Many of its de facto citizens have been made to feel as if they were strangers post the event, while Brexit has inevitably made the whole of the UK stranger, as in, less likeable and open-minded. The final use of the term stranger reflects London's hidden histories and mythologies. Even if Grant's novel falls at times into speculative fiction, what could notionally be stranger than finding an elephant stabled in a community cut off from its neighbours and forgotten by time? Or a prison ship moored on the Thames holding foreign detainees? In general, Grant writes with great emotion, intelligence and insight. She is a social historian by training and has researched well. While the leitmotif of the novel is the image of an unknown drowned girl, more than A Stranger City being a love letter to London, or a lament against Brexit, it is a testament to the depths of human nature. All the characters are deserved survivors making their mark, irrespective of circumstance. Like London, they prove their adaptability. 10/10.
By Linda Grant