Vulnerability, Relationality, Fragmentation and Networking in Linda Grant’s A Stranger City (2019)

Abstract

Set during the immediate months before and after Brexit, Linda Grant’s novel A Stranger City turns London into a microcosm where the misfortunes linked to migration, racism, violence, terrorism, capitalism and individualism make a group of dissimilar characters’ lives intersect around the mysterious death of an ‘unidentified’ migrant woman. Grant’s literary works tend to represent female characters’ journeys in search of personhood. However, this time, she addresses more transnational and present-day issues to the extent that it has been considered as illustrative of hybrid literature produced during the post-2016 era. By relying on close-reading tools, one of the main aims of my study is to demonstrate that A Stranger City displays some specific narrative devices which feature those fictional modes that have been defined as translit (Legget 2016), networked novels (Edwards 2019) and fragmented narratives (Gioia 2013). Further, I will claim that women writers like Grant are resorting to new narrative forms to denounce the fact that the global crisis of values affects women more intensely. Moreover, I will link the notions of home and exile problematized in this novel to the modern construction of Jewish identity and, finally, conclude that this relational narrative proves that twenty-first-century Jewish women are embracing the transnational arena to redefine themselves in our global world.

Keywords:

• Linda Grant
• Brexit
• British-Jewish
• vulnerability
• relationality
• fragmentation

Acknowledgement

The research for this article was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2021-124841NB-I00) in collaboration with the European Regional Development Fund (DGI/ERDF) and the Government of Aragón (H03_20R).

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Grant’s novel makes clear Robert Eaglestone’s claim that ‘literature is an especially useful and appropriate way to address the political arguments about national identity which lie at the heart of Brexit’ (2018: 1). A Stranger’s City could be read as part of the group of novels that have been labelled as BrexLit. In Kristian Shaw’s words, ‘in a post-Brexit landscape, novels are already appearing that could claim the tag of Brexit fiction, or “BrexLit”, reflecting the divided nature of the UK and the ramifications of the referendum. The term BrexLit concerns fictions that either directly respond or imaginatively allude to Britain’s exit from the EU, or engage with the subsequent socio-cultural, economic, racial or cosmopolitan consequences of Britain’s withdrawal’ (18). Within these works we can find Ali Smith’s Autumn (2016), Douglas Board’s Time of Lies (2017), Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13 (2017), John Lanchester’s The Wall (2019) and A.L. Kennedy’s Serious Sweet (2016) among others.