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Surveillance: A Novel

Surveillance: A Novel

by JonathanRaban (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 2007

    $3.52
Synopsis

In a brave new post-9/11 world jumpy Seattle bears little resemblance to the city Lucy Bengstrom dreamed of as a girl. Living alone with her eleven-year-old daughter Alida, she looks to her journalism to make sense of it all.

Yet with Alida drifting into adolescence and the home she's built up for them under threat, it's clear to Lucy that life is changing. Finding herself under intense scrutiny and faced with her toughest assignment yet, she begins to rebel against everything her personal and professional life has taught her.

`Chastening and darkly funny . . . For all its gloomy prognostications on the way society is heading, Surveillance will only leave you wanting more' Anthony Quinn, Daily Telegraph

'Surveillance is a work that confirms Raban as one of the most original commentators on the times in which we live' William Skidelsky, New Statesman

`A dense human comedy about truth and lies . . . He writes easily, his prose is relaxed, conversational, his observations shrewd . . . Surveillance is a novel for and about a US in which everyone wants to be American and in which security is the new terror. Raban's offbeat narrative is a cautionary one dealing with the upheaval of the crisis known as Now' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 336
 Edition: Main Market
 Publisher: Picador
Published: 07 Sep 2007
ISBN 10: 0330418394
ISBN 13: 9780330418393

Media Reviews
When the going gets tough, the tough get nosy. And so, in this well-realized novel, does everyone else . . . A coolly delivered portrait of the Wired Age, when paranoia rules and truth is at a premium.
- Kirkus Reviews
An air of suspenseful dread hangs over every page of this intelligent, provocative book, and when the end finally rolls in, readers will be stunned and, in some cases, outraged.
- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Surveillance is arguably the finest, most human, most chilling novel to have emerged in response to these desperate times.
- Martyn Bedford, Literary Review
Of all the 9/11 books so far, Surveillance is perhaps the most disturbing because it offers scant comfort and no certainties.
- Ian Sansom, The Spectator
Post 9/11, everyone watches and is being watched . . . In Raban' s black and brilliant portrait of his adopted city, all kinds of sinister forces filter and manipulate the truth. A wonderfully ironic, disturbing take on the un-privacy of modern life.
- Kate Saunders, The Times (London)
Raban is deadly serious in his portrayal of a country running scared, but he also has a taste for sly social comedy: His ear for idiom is well-nigh faultless, be it the ironic locutions of Seattle school kids or the braying tones of a haughty Englishwoman, and his character-sketching is precise and assured.
- Anthony Quinn, The Daily Telegraph
Surveillanc e is never less than absorbing in its treatment of people attempting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happinessaccording to their very different lights..
- Sean O' Brien, The Times Literary Supplement
One of the best attempts so far to engage with the post-- 9/11 world . . . Having devoted his career mainly to nonfiction, Raban is becoming one of our most insightful novelists.
- William Skidelsky, New Statesman
If someone were to come along and tell me I had half an hour to put together a 2006 time capsule, Jonathan Raban' s new novel is the first thing I' d grab . . . Nothing else would come as close to distilling the particular attitudes and anxieties of our time as Surveillance,
- Toby Litt, The Guardian

From the Hardcover edition.


When the going gets tough, the tough get nosy. And so, in this well-realized novel, does everyone else . . . A coolly delivered portrait of the Wired Age, when paranoia rules and truth is at a premium.
- Kirkus Reviews
An air of suspenseful dread hangs over every page of this intelligent, provocative book, and when the end finally rolls in, readers will be stunned and, in some cases, outraged.
- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Surveillance is arguably the finest, most human, most chilling novel to have emerged in response to these desperate times.
-Martyn Bedford, Literary Review
Of all the 9/11 books so far, Surveillance is perhaps the most disturbing because it offers scant comfort and no certainties.
-Ian Sansom, The Spectator
Post 9/11, everyone watches and is being watched . . . In Raban's black and brilliant portrait of his adopted city, all kinds of sinister forces filter and manipulate the truth. A wonderfully ironic, disturbing take on the un-privacy of modern life.
-Kate Saunders, The Times (London)
Raban is deadly serious in his portrayal of a country running scared, but he also has a taste for sly social comedy: His ear for idiom is well-nigh faultless, be it the ironic locutions of Seattle school kids or the braying tones of a haughty Englishwoman, and his character-sketching is precise and assured.
-Anthony Quinn, The Daily Telegraph
Surveillanc e is never less than absorbing in its treatment of people attempting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness according to their very different lights..
-Sean O'Brien, The Times Literary Supplement
One of the best attempts so far to engage withthe post--9/11 world . . . Having devoted his career mainly to nonfiction, Raban is becoming one of our most insightful novelists.
-William Skidelsky, New Statesman
If someone were to come along and tell me I had half an hour to put together a 2006 time capsule, Jonathan Raban's new novel is the first thing I'd grab . . . Nothing else would come as close to distilling the particular attitudes and anxieties of our time as Surveillance,
-Toby Litt, The Guardian

From the Hardcover edition.


As atmospheric with vague menace as a Hitchcock thriller. --Michael Dirda, New York Review of Books
Scarily beautiful . . . . [Raban is] a gifted writer who explores the human condition with tenderness, empathy and rueful wit.
-- The Washington Post
A timely disquisition on the fragility of truth and identity in the information age. --Bloomberg News
Raban is using fiction to explore the most important issues of our day and doing so at the highest artistic level. -- Oregonian
Heart-thumping dread permeates this creepy, stunning book. -- Tucson Citizen
Raban is a wonderful and cerebral stylist, a master of arresting syntactical inversions with an incisive view of our contemporary moment. -- Cleveland Plain Dealer
Mesmerizing. . . . Sharp and riveting. . . . A masterful job. -- Newsday
Author Bio
Jonathan Raban is the author of several award-wininning novels. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, Harpers, the Guardian and other publications. Raban moved from London to Seattle in 1990.