City of Strangers

Description

Family secrets, a fateful encounter, and the strangeness of life in the city- a first novel of polished perfection. Paul Metzger's life is in a state of disrepair; a writer in his mid-thirties, he is divorced and underacheiving. One winter afternoon he travels into New York to visit three people; an elder half-brother who wants little to do with him; a disgraced, dying father, once infamous as a Nazi sympathiser; and an ex-wife whom Paul still loves. But Paul soon realises that he is being watched, and it is this fourth, unplanned and violent, encounter that will chanage more than one life, forever.

Ian MacKenzie graduated from Harvard in 2004. He lives in Brooklyn.

Ambitious -- Adrian Turpin * Financial Times * 'The New York of City of Strangers is a lonely, violent place, shadowed by failure and the sins of the past, yet this is no simple neo-noir. There's depth and extension to the world Ian MacKenzie creates for his hero, and brilliant writing on every page. It's hard to believe this is a debut - and that much more exciting * Stewart O'Nan * A novel as grim as it is extraordinary...MacKenzie sets up a New York rampant with alienation and misunderstanding, and his visceral narrative,powered by taut prose and braced with sturdy philosophical and psychological underpinnings, is a winner * Publishers Weekly * Excellent... Relentless... Powerful * Chicago Tribune * A glum gem -- William Leith * Evening Standard *