Nightshift by Kiare Ladner

 

Nightshift by Kiare Ladner.

Published 18th February 2021 by Picador Books.

From the cover of the book:

Nightshift is a story of obsession set in London’s liminal world of nightshift workers.

When twenty-three-year-old Meggie meets distant and enigmatic Sabine, she recognizes in her the person she would like to be. Giving up her daytime existence, her reliable boyfriend, and the trappings of a normal life in favour of working the same nightshifts as Sabine could be the perfect escape for Meggie. She finds a liberating sense of freedom in indulging her growing preoccupation with Sabine and plunges herself into another existence, gradually immersing herself in the transient and uncertain world of the nightshift worker.

Dark, sexy, frightening, Nightshift explores ambivalent female friendship, sexual attraction and lives that defy easy categorization. London’s stark urban reality is rendered other-worldly and strange as Meggie’s sleep deprivation, drinking and fixation with Sabine gain a momentum all of their own. Can Meggie really lose herself in her trying to become someone else?

A novel of obsession and desire, Kiare Ladner’s Nightshift is a beautiful and moving debut which asks profound questions about who we are and if we can truly escape ourselves.

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Meggie, at twenty-three, is at a crossroads in her life. Dissatisfied and bored with where the world has brought her, she longs to be free of the drudgery of her job and the expected course of the relationship with her boyfriend. Then, into her life walks the mysterious and sultry Sabine. Sabine is everything Meggie wishes she could be, and their unpredictable relationship quickly turns into obsession on Meggie's side.

When Meggie's fixation encourages her to follow Sabine into the underworld of the nightshift worker, the very process of working such unusual hours means letting go of everything she is used to. She becomes enmeshed in the chaos of life on the fringe that she and her fellow band of night workers inhabit, which gives her a feeling of camaraderie that she has never experienced before, and it also brings the permission to follow Sabine down other, more dangerous, paths - pushing her boundaries, and exploring her sexuality, in her quest to become someone else.

But their relationship is not an easy one. Meggie never really knows where she stands with Sabine, and their repeating cycle of intimacy and distance is disorienting to say the least. When Meggie's journey into the chaotic hedonism that is Sabine's reality takes a shocking turn, she begins to think differently about their friendship and look for a way to escape from the self-destructive path she is on. Taking stock, she begins to see that she doesn't really know anything about the woman who has taken hold of her every waking thought - and that others do not see her the way she does. Who is Sabine really?

This dark, absorbing and unsettling novel is told in a retrospective narrative by Meggie, as she reflects on her relationship with Sabine some twenty years before. As Meggie lays out the history of their twisted friendship you are pulled into a parallel world where normal boundaries and connections do not exist. Caught under the spell of Sabine, Meggie loses sight of her own identity and purpose - in this surreal world, this underworld, this space outside the daylight hours, she can be whoever she wants, and she wants to be Sabine... or does she simply want to be with Sabine? Whatever this is, it is not the path to happiness, and eventually she needs to free herself of the influence of Sabine before it is too late... but can she ever truly be free again?

Telling the tale in this way allows Kiare Ladner to expose the dark course that obsession and desire can take, but also allow the truth about Sabine and how meeting her has affected the direction of Meggie's life to be revealed after the event, which was rather clever - and it adds an air of poignancy to the whole story.

I absolutely loved this novel about identity, infatuation, loneliness and yearning for connection. It's impressive work for a debut author, and cannot wait to read more from Kiare Ladner.

Nightshift is available to buy from your favourite book retailer now in hardcover, e-book and audio formats.

Thank you to Grace Harrison at Picador books for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

As a child, Kiare Ladner wanted to live on a farm, run an orphanage and be on stage. As an adult, she found herself working for academics, with prisoners and on nightshifts. Her short stories have been published in South Africa, where she grew up, and the UK, where she lives now.

Nightshift is her debut novel.