In the City of Love's Sleep

Lavinia Greenlaw

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9780571337644
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

This is a story about a woman and a man who meet by chance. Nothing of any importance is said, yet she suddenly turns away, leaves the room, and starts to run. She is in shock from what this man has brought back to life: an electrical affinity, a higher self, a feeling of having been woken, recognized, and desired.

Iris, a museum conservator in her late forties, is in the midst of separating from her husband, with whom she has two daughters. Her house is falling down, money is tight, and her husband is unwell. The man she meets is Raif, a stalled academic whose wife has died and whose girlfriend is about to move in. He is not as mysterious as he appears.

Iris and Raif have no say. For all we talk about love; name its parts; explain it to each other, it is something that just happens to us. We repeat steps laden with memory. In the City of Love's Sleep reveals love in all its inscrutable complexity: the raw nature of feeling and its uncontrollable, inconsistent, unsettling truths.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Landing Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• yes
• follow
• the bone skates
• the only thing to do
• a failed instrument
• who are you?
• anywhere
• is he flirting with her?
• the cloud mirror
• meeting point
• varnish
• withdrawn memory
• curiosity
• I am not what I am
• black mist
• the little rebellions
• a pattern
• the interrupted city
• the merman
• a crowded room
• something is pressing
• how a heart is broken
• I’m not, I don’t feel
• a blade
• our best selves
• the sting
• an anatomical model of a horse
• an understanding of its parts
• he wants to speak
• space so easily overthrown
• display
• a yardstick
• rain
• a small green space
• the real thing
• shall I leave you now?
• the towers
• the heart
• glare
• where are you where I am?
• a diversion from a conclusion
• this is all true
• love
• the mortsafe
• the new
• a lapse
• I can’t say
• the object reminds us
• alarms
• the iron lung
• questions
• what’s missing, what remains
• the jealousy glass
• whose story?
• the black place
• used, broken, lost
• a switch
• blossom
• practical momentum
• history
• kissing
• daylight
• a museum
• the wonder box
• what if she falls?
• where certainty lies
• the shape it takes
• a strengthening
• the glamour of the object
• a skeleton
• a provocation
• fucking
• happiness
• the unknown object
• weakness allowed to remain
• it won’t change anything
• sometimes we are in the same city
• Acknowledgements and sources
• About the Author
• Also by the Author
• Copyright