The Night Watch

Overview

Sarah Waters, the award-winning author of three novels setin Victorian London, returns with a stunning novel that marks adeparture from the 19th century.

Editorial Reviews

Waters begins Night Watch at the end of her tale in 1947 and works her way backwards to 1941. Since she ensures that characters don't spoil the freshness of earlier events by leaking important information, the first part includes a series of conversations that coyly allude to the characters' pasts and make the narrative slightly difficult to comprehend. The feat of entering this tale aurally is compounded by having to follow three separate narrative lines, which Waters later connects with clever Dickensian precision. Juanita McMahon performs the work persuasively. What she lacks in vocal range, she makes up by endowing characters with accents and speech patterns to reflect distinctions of social class. She gives the character Kay's voice such deep Dietrich-like sexual innuendo that one wonders why her lovers abandon her. Recorded Books politely reminds listeners which disk they have started and repeats the last sentence of the previous. Both are welcome features. Despite the initial challenge, Night Watch is a skillfully written historical account of love of all persuasions trying to survive the dark prospects of London during the blitz. Simultaneous release with the Riverhead hardcover (Reviews, Dec. 12). (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Sarah Waters

Sarah Waters, 35, was born in Pembrokeshire, South West Wales, United Kingdom. She studied English Literature at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, at the universities of Kent and Lancaster. As a student she lived for two years in Whitstable, the sea-side town--famous for its oysters--in which her first novel, Tipping the Velvet, is partly set. In 1988 she moved to London; her first full-time job was in an independent bookshop; later she worked in public libraries. In 1991 she decided to return to postgraduate study, and she spent the next three years writing a Ph.D. thesis, on lesbian and gay historical fiction. She developed a daily writing routine, and a passion for language and composition. She had articles on gender, sexuality, and history published in various scholarly journals, including Feminist Review, Journal of the History of Sexuality, and Science as Culture. But while working on her thesis, and becoming increasingly interested in London life of the nineteenth century, Waters began to conceive the historical novel that would become Tipping the Velvet. With the thesis complete, and supporting herself with bits of teaching and part-time library work, she started to write. The novel was finished in just over a year, and was published in the U.K. by Virago (1998) and in the U.S. by Riverhead (1999). The BBC is in the process of adapting the book into a major series with director Andrew Davies, who also directed the BBC's adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now. By 1991, Waters had already begun her second novel, Affinity. This was completed with help from a London Arts Board New London Writers Award, and appeared in the U.K. in 1999 and in the U.S. in 2000. Waters taught for a time for the Open University, a national educational institution offering undergraduate schooling to mature students from a range of social backgrounds. She has also tutored on creative writing programs. She published articles on literature as recently as 1999, but now devotes herself full time to the writing of fiction. Her third novel, Fingersmith, was completed in 2001, and she is currently at work on her next book. She still lives in London, a city she finds endlessly inspiring; but she dreams, too, of returning to a life by the sea. Sarah Waters made the Granta list for 2003.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Riverhead Trade (Paperbacks)

Filesize

1.13 MB

Number of Pages

544

eBook ISBN

9781429502481

Awards

• Galaxy British Book Awards
• Lambda Literary Awards
• Man Booker Prize for Fiction
• Orange Prize for Fiction
• Stonewall Book Awards