The Long Room

September 5, 2016
Kay’s new book is a brilliant spy novel charged with existential dread. In 1981, as the Cold War sputters on and IRA bombs explode, Stephen Spencer is a
listener for the Institute, a subsection of British Intelligence. He spends his days listening to taped conversations of peripheral enemies of the state. One day, he is given a new assignment: to listen to the domestic tapes of Phoenix, an Institute member who might also be a traitor. And as he begins his aural surveillance, Stephen, who leads a lonely existence, soon becomes obsessed with Phoenix’s unseen wife, Helen, imagining her life, and what his life could be like if they were together. He becomes a secret sharer in all the intimate details of her marriage. In order to keep the surveillance going, Stephen puts himself at great risk. He even goes so far as to stalk Helen and visit the apartment building in which she and Phoenix reside. At the same time, he becomes friendly with a mysterious foreigner named Alberic, who figures prominently in Stephen’s last-ditch attempt to meet Helen. Kay (The Translation of Bones) does an excellent job of portraying Stephen’s inner life and his descent into obsession. She also does well at delineating the covert society of Stephen and his fellow listeners. Filled with witty period references to Brideshead Revisited, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Another Country, this is a haunting work of espionage fiction.

October 1, 2016
Stuck at a desk in London listening to hidden-microphone recordings of old Communists, Stephen, a young intelligence officer, yearns for excitement, and he leaps at the opportunity to participate in a sensitive mission involving an apparent double agent. Through cassette tapes labeled PHOENIX, he discovers Helen, whose voice is like water, or soft wind breathing on fresh leaves, and whose songs ravish him in foreign languages and stir within him new hungers. When she has sex with her husband, the intended target of Stephen's surveillance, Stephen cannot bear to listen. Once the surveillance winds down, Stephen frets, drinks, and wanders around Helen's neighborhood; he is befriended by a curious man with a foreign accent and an interest in his secrets. Finally, he demonstrates just how desperate he is to preserve his tenuous connection with his beloved. Many spy novels have complicated protagonists, but Stephen is unique in his fragility, desire, and solipsism, making this a study of pathology born of loneliness. Kay (The Translation of the Bones, 2012) winds it all up tightly, building to a remarkably suspenseful conclusion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)