What do you think?
Rate this book
City
City by James Roy is the companion short story collection to the highly successful and award-winning book, Town, published by UQP in 2007.
The only water out this way is the river and the reservoir and the twin pipes that feed the city. Huge and dark, each as thick through as a small car, they rise and fall across the pains towards the glowing sky and the shimmering skyline.
In his acclaimed collection, Town, James Roy used the short story to chart the social tapestry of a country town as seen through the eyes of thirteen young residents. The young people in City are linked in very different ways - through chance meetings, found objects, social connections, the civil disobedience of the shadowy Poet and the streets of a city.
Like the town in its companion collection, this place has no name. But any reader who has ever lived in a city will find it immediately familiar.
A striking collection of connected stories that reflect our lives and those of the people that we pass each day.
The only water out this way is the river and the reservoir and the twin pipes that feed the city. Huge and dark, each as thick through as a small car, they rise and fall across the pains towards the glowing sky and the shimmering skyline.
In his acclaimed collection, Town, James Roy used the short story to chart the social tapestry of a country town as seen through the eyes of thirteen young residents. The young people in City are linked in very different ways - through chance meetings, found objects, social connections, the civil disobedience of the shadowy Poet and the streets of a city.
Like the town in its companion collection, this place has no name. But any reader who has ever lived in a city will find it immediately familiar.
A striking collection of connected stories that reflect our lives and those of the people that we pass each day.
312 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2012
1 person is currently reading
46 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 3, 2015
quite liked it for some reason
October 5, 2021
A series of loosely linked short stories, snatches of life, centring around early adulthood in and around an Australian City (which I think is Brisbane). The stories are real, which is perhaps why I didn't love it - I found nearly all the characters a bit annoying (because late teenagers can be as they're learning to make good and bad life choices).
July 5, 2017
Some intriguing stories, but not as interwoven as I had envisaged going in. I would like to have found out more about some of the characters we barely met, but enjoyed following others.
February 7, 2013
“The only water out this way is the river and the reservoir and the twin pipes that feed the city. Huge and dark, each as thick through as a small car, they rise and fall across the pains towards the glowing sky and the shimmering skyline.”
Familiarity takes time, for any new city dwellers. The connections between places and people are not always apparent immediately, and maybe one day people might see you walking around confidently, those first few steps are going to be frightening and uncomfortable.
This is showcased in City and its companion novel, Town. In City, James Roy tells the story of 13 young people who are in some way linked by where they are and sometimes even by their association, yet they are all strangers. This novel tells the story of the connections the bind a city’s inhabitants through music, streets, nightlife, buses, as well as poems scrawled in unexpected places and sporting teams. The characters are from all different levels on the social spectrum- the unemployed, poets, junkies, artists, students, privet school boys, speed-daters, workers and visitors from the outback. At different points in the novel, names become familiar, places become recognized landmarks and this story comes alive within your imagination. These stories are all set in an unnamed, modern city.
The stories are greatly written, leaving you wishing there was more even though it was enough. My favourite character was a young nurse, Lauren, who has a budding romance with an African musician. I also thoroughly enjoyed the narrator, who was in love with a mystery girl on his bus, even though they had only met once.
This novel can be read as a series of short stories about city life. But that is denying the fun of flicking back through and realizing the, sometimes subtle, connection to a previous character or story.
Familiarity takes time, for any new city dwellers. The connections between places and people are not always apparent immediately, and maybe one day people might see you walking around confidently, those first few steps are going to be frightening and uncomfortable.
This is showcased in City and its companion novel, Town. In City, James Roy tells the story of 13 young people who are in some way linked by where they are and sometimes even by their association, yet they are all strangers. This novel tells the story of the connections the bind a city’s inhabitants through music, streets, nightlife, buses, as well as poems scrawled in unexpected places and sporting teams. The characters are from all different levels on the social spectrum- the unemployed, poets, junkies, artists, students, privet school boys, speed-daters, workers and visitors from the outback. At different points in the novel, names become familiar, places become recognized landmarks and this story comes alive within your imagination. These stories are all set in an unnamed, modern city.
The stories are greatly written, leaving you wishing there was more even though it was enough. My favourite character was a young nurse, Lauren, who has a budding romance with an African musician. I also thoroughly enjoyed the narrator, who was in love with a mystery girl on his bus, even though they had only met once.
This novel can be read as a series of short stories about city life. But that is denying the fun of flicking back through and realizing the, sometimes subtle, connection to a previous character or story.
October 10, 2012
Roy’s prize-winning successes with Town, his previous collection of linked short stories are now rivalled here. These stories will especially appeal to boys and serve as a model for young writers; as the cover says “everyone has a story”. However, not everyone tells the stories as well as Roy does, using his experience as a nurse and as a father of teenagers to feed his acute observation of older adolescent life. The 22 stories including a few short poems deserve several films, if only they would use Roy’s convincing dialog. The outstanding story to me is The Driver in which three boofhead boys find their mateship loyalty stretched to breaking point with hilarious consequences. I would love to read this aloud to a class of year 9-11 students or hear them perform it in readers theatre mode. The narration moves from third person to first person characters, both male and female with links between the characters and those moving through the city and suburbs by bus and train, searching for that elusive human contact and even including a speed dating story. Students may have other fun figuring out the linked characters and enjoying the ironic and slightly anarchic mood that also binds the stories together. Yes, there are suitably mediated drug references, a flick knife, booze, racism, popular music, footy and dangerous driving and if you hunt them down, just a few expletives that give the dialog the sense of authenticity rather than the gross realism that might worry some school gatekeepers. Highly recommended for years 9 – 11.
December 4, 2012
The novel is set in an unnamed city that is supposed to be the epitome of all city life told from the eyes of numerous young people. It progresses much like the movie Crash directed by Paul Haggis where no one really knows one another but they're all interlinked in some way or other.
The stories alone were actually quite interesting and I enjoyed the flow of the chapter but all too soon, the chapter ends and another story begins. I never get to find out the ending of the previous stories and that frustrated me a little bit. I thought Roy would go back to finishing the stories after he does a whole lap of all of the other characters - but he doesn't.
Furthermore, I thought that the stories would connect with each other in a stronger way, or perhaps come to an ending where everything comes together like a complicated, sticky web of mess forming a whole picture. But it doesn't.
The writing was straightforward and easy to read. You could tell that these characters had real, three-dimensional voices and their voices exemplified the city life. It explores racism, bullying, teenages' 'party scenes' with drugs and alcohol, basically every aspect of the life of an average adolescent. I enjoyed the descriptions of the places Roy described and I actually relate to some of them because it is set in Australia. When he described the graffiti, I pictured CityRail and its walls of nonsense, although I've yet to see a haiku.
The stories alone were actually quite interesting and I enjoyed the flow of the chapter but all too soon, the chapter ends and another story begins. I never get to find out the ending of the previous stories and that frustrated me a little bit. I thought Roy would go back to finishing the stories after he does a whole lap of all of the other characters - but he doesn't.
Furthermore, I thought that the stories would connect with each other in a stronger way, or perhaps come to an ending where everything comes together like a complicated, sticky web of mess forming a whole picture. But it doesn't.
The writing was straightforward and easy to read. You could tell that these characters had real, three-dimensional voices and their voices exemplified the city life. It explores racism, bullying, teenages' 'party scenes' with drugs and alcohol, basically every aspect of the life of an average adolescent. I enjoyed the descriptions of the places Roy described and I actually relate to some of them because it is set in Australia. When he described the graffiti, I pictured CityRail and its walls of nonsense, although I've yet to see a haiku.
December 29, 2012
This is a collection of short stories for Young Adults, which are meant to be set in the city and act as a companion book to the collection Town. Although it was named city, it felt more like ‘inner city suburb’ rather than the centre of a busy city. There were the traditional ‘gritty’ stories about drug dealers and getting caught up in crime, but nothing really happens to those characters – or if it does, it happens after the story has finished. There’s some connections between the stories, but I read it in short bursts, so I may have missed some of them. Another ‘linking mechanism’ throughout the book was a graffiti artist who wrote haikus around the city. I think this was supposed to come across as poetic, but the adult in me just saw it as a destructive action – there are many other ways to communicate without doing something illegal.
There was some lovely patches of writing, but I never cared about the characters, mostly because I spent so little time with each of them. The book as a whole felt like an exercise in writing, rather than a cohesive book. It was mildly enjoyable, but never held my attention for very long.
Review originally appeared at Adventures of a Subversive Reader
There was some lovely patches of writing, but I never cared about the characters, mostly because I spent so little time with each of them. The book as a whole felt like an exercise in writing, rather than a cohesive book. It was mildly enjoyable, but never held my attention for very long.
Review originally appeared at Adventures of a Subversive Reader
July 27, 2015
City is a companion short story collection to James Roy's Town, which I read and loved way back in 2007. Like Town, the stories occur in an unnamed city, offering snapshots into the lives of young people. It’s supposed to be a collection for young adults, but I think it’ll appeal to older adults just as much – the stories are vivid and heart-wrenching and skillfully written, and they illustrate the beauty and anonymity of city life perfectly. I enjoyed all of the stories, but my favourites were the hilarious and absurd The Driver – wherein two less-than-bright mates try and get their friend out of a tricky (and maybe dangerous) situation) – and the more heartfelt Terminal – which takes the form of a letter a teenage boy writes to his mum (who is implied to be dying), about the first time he takes drugs. Don’t expect a great deal of conclusiveness from the stories – they are just snapshots. The links between stories are vague, tenuous, and things are rarely wrapped up neatly in the end. Why are there so few short story collections for teenagers, apart from the odd anthology? They are a brilliant, powerful format, especially for the busy and distracted. Definitely one for older teenagers, and those whose taste is a bit more literary.
August 19, 2023
This kept catching my eye in the library, and I usually don't bother with books like this because these because they tend to be either unentertaining or vaguely racist (often both), but this one was actually quite good.
There were a few odd comments about being gay, which were almost always met with a teetering on the line between neutrality and disgust, and I admittedly did find that strange. And that's only adding to the fact that there were no gay characters in the book, just jokes at the expense, but eh. If that didn't capture the average Australian's thoughts around gayness I don't know what would. That's not something that really takes away from my opinion, just something I tend to notice as a queer.
I did really enjoy the ways that things tied back around, to earlier characters or off-handed comments, so it would probably be good upon reread to pick up on things you don't the first time as well. I'll try to remember that and get around to rereading at some point. I feel like I missed a lot of what was there, so I want to explore again. Maybe take notes, or annotate as I go along?
Anyway, not the point, I liked this. I recommend it. I'll need to read Town at some point as well.
There were a few odd comments about being gay, which were almost always met with a teetering on the line between neutrality and disgust, and I admittedly did find that strange. And that's only adding to the fact that there were no gay characters in the book, just jokes at the expense, but eh. If that didn't capture the average Australian's thoughts around gayness I don't know what would. That's not something that really takes away from my opinion, just something I tend to notice as a queer.
I did really enjoy the ways that things tied back around, to earlier characters or off-handed comments, so it would probably be good upon reread to pick up on things you don't the first time as well. I'll try to remember that and get around to rereading at some point. I feel like I missed a lot of what was there, so I want to explore again. Maybe take notes, or annotate as I go along?
Anyway, not the point, I liked this. I recommend it. I'll need to read Town at some point as well.
January 9, 2016
City is a collection of short stories and poems about the life revolving around an unnamed city.
There are some stories that are better than others. Those that were good, I kind of wanted it to explore it a little bit further with their characters or I want it to continue but it ended. Some don't make sense, you kinda just have to know the background which is a little bit frustrating because it had the potential to be good. Some of the one page stories/poems should be left out because it didn't fit or made sense in this book.
The stories that I considered bad or not interesting was because that it didn't make sense, didn't fit in the flow of this book or simply the characters had no dimension to them at all. I didn't really care for them in the space of their 20 page narrative.
There are some stories that are better than others. Those that were good, I kind of wanted it to explore it a little bit further with their characters or I want it to continue but it ended. Some don't make sense, you kinda just have to know the background which is a little bit frustrating because it had the potential to be good. Some of the one page stories/poems should be left out because it didn't fit or made sense in this book.
The stories that I considered bad or not interesting was because that it didn't make sense, didn't fit in the flow of this book or simply the characters had no dimension to them at all. I didn't really care for them in the space of their 20 page narrative.
July 25, 2022
Eine uninteressante Aneinanderreihung von Kurzgeschichten, die loose von Gedichten zusammengehalten werden sollen. Vielleicht ist auch die Übersetzung daran Schuld, aber die Gedichte sind der schwächste Teil. Die Kurzgeschichten sind angeblich an realen Ereignissen inspiriert, sollte das der Fall sein, dann sind sie das zu sehr, um zum Lesen interessant zu sein. Wenn mir Dinge wie hier geschildert passieren würden, wäre das sicher eine nette Anekdote wert, zum Lesen fehlt da aber noch so einiges an Spannung. Für den größten Teil des Buches langweilt man sich nur.
September 27, 2012
In such a short time James create whole characters, whom we care about or feel that we know. And a living city. Clever. And the poems. I am looking for them in the city now. I may even re-read this title which I rarely do.
May 22, 2013
some stories were a little pointless, idk, but overall, pretty good. I did like how some stories linked with other ones.
I wouldn't say City was as good as Town (because I really adored Town) but I still recommend this book.
I wouldn't say City was as good as Town (because I really adored Town) but I still recommend this book.
October 14, 2012
Another excellent collection of short stories from the author of 'Town'. Each story stands alone, but there are links, connections, & crossover characters.
I was absorbed, engaged and impressed.
I was absorbed, engaged and impressed.
November 25, 2012
this was sweet and went through a bunch of different points of view. and was also insufferably australian.
March 22, 2014
Thought provoking short stories.
June 25, 2014
This book was fantastic. Some of the stories felt so uniquely Australian. Loved it! Full review to come.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews