A City Burning – Angela Graham

The characters in Angela Graham’s stories, set in Wales, Northern Ireland and Italy, find themselves faced with a choice following something they have witnessed or done. They have come to a moment of change, which puts to the proof their beliefs or their idea of themselves. Some of these moments occur in mundane circumstances, others amidst tragedy or drama − urban violence, the Covid-19 pandemic, the tipping-point of a marriage. The characters find themselves confirmed or radicalised, and challenge or resist on one or other side of a political division or on the personal front of domestic tyranny. They include a watchful child, a gay priest, an estranged husband, an actress adrift and a young woman catching the tail-end of heartless urban mayhem. A City Burning examines power of all types, exploring conflicts between political allegiances; between autonomy and intimacy; emotional display and concealment. The result is a deeply human book full of hauntingly memorable characters and narratives.