In Our Mad and Furious City

Reviews

"Narrators Ben Bailey Smith and Lou Marie Kerr expertly intertwine multiple first-person points of view in this gritty debut audiobook...Listeners unfamiliar with the dialects--Irish, Jamaican, and British among them--will be especially buoyed by the power of the performances." -AudioFile, Earphones Award Winner

"This is cracking. Original, honest voices and a vivid portrayal of a London rarely seen in literature."
—Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train

"What a voice. What an ear for language. No mean feat to capture the street, the nuance of black experience, the architecture of so many different lives. It's a brave and original piece of work."
—Kit de Waal, author of The Trick to Time

"Gritty, grotesque; graceful and beautiful. This is the London that we call home."
—JJ Bola, author of No Place to Call Home

"The voices and the language are stunning . . . The narrative and energy hooked me right from the start and never let go. It really is a very special book—the book we've all been waiting for."
—Gautam Malkani, author of Londonstani

"A blazing, swaggering, polyphonic debut. Here is London through the eyes of those 'with elsewhere in their blood'. Gunaratne has a ventriloquist's command of voice, a film-maker's eye, and talent to burn.
—Simon Wroe, author of Here Comes Trouble

"Both blighted by frustration and elevated by dreams we can all recognize and share. Guy's characters are drawn with compassion and flair, and I was captivated by their humanity."
—Stephen Kelman, author of Pigeon English

"A beautiful, fierce storm of a book, full of courage and hope" —Jackie Morris, author of The Lost Words

"Our favorite debut of 2018. Gunaratne draws on growing up in north-west London in this tale of 48 hours on a council estate, where three young boys dream of escaping."
—Glamour (UK)

"In Our Mad and Furious City is fraught and heartbreaking at the same time, with a biting, in-your-face clarity to it that you can't ignore. It's a searing marvel of a novel."
—Belfast Telegraph

"Already hailed as a modern masterpiece, this timely and authentic portrayal of life for young men living on our city estates is as mesmerizing as it is vital."
—Heat (UK)

"The prose remains alive, alert and subtly integrated, with various accents and non-standard Englishes raising themselves up to the same very high literary watermark . . . What you are left with . . . is a prose that benefits from being read aloud. But more so, a prose that just plain deserves to be read."
—Irish Times

"This novel is a love letter to the language of London's streets and to its people, but also a blistering look at a city on the edge that'll sweep you up until you reach the book's breathless, devastating conclusion."
—Stylist (UK)

"A blistering debut unlike anything I've read before. This is a powerful, raw, yet heartrending account of 48 hours on a London estate"
—BBC

"A timely read, addressing the urgent questions of our divided society. We're sure Guy is set for big things"
—Metro (UK)

"[A] blazing polyphonic debut."
—Guardian (UK)