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Another Man in the Street: A Novel
The powerful and evocative story of a young West Indian man's search for home in 1960s London - by the multi-award-winning author dubbed 'one of the literary giants of our time' (New York Times)
'A masterful stylist writing at the top of his powers' Anthony Joseph
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In the early Sixties, Victor 'Lucky' Johnson arrives in London from St Kitts, with dreams of becoming a journalist. Lucky soon finds work first at an Irish pub in Notting Hill – then as a rent collector for an unscrupulous slum landlord Peter Feldman.
Shadowing Lucky from his early struggles in London to the present day, Caryl Phillips paints a striking portrait of a flawed but vividly alive man grappling with the lifelong disillusionments of exile – and the uniquely complicated identity of the Windrush generation.
Another Man in the Street is an unforgettable story of loss, displacement, belonging, and the triumph of Black resilience - epic in scope and yet profoundly intimate; and a radical and timely portrait of immigrant London.
___________________________________________________
Praise for Caryl Phillips
'One of Britain's pre-eminent writers' Guardian
'One of the literary giants of our time' New York Times
'Phillips is a linguistic and cultural virtuoso' The Times
'A masterful stylist writing at the top of his powers' Anthony Joseph
____________________________________________
In the early Sixties, Victor 'Lucky' Johnson arrives in London from St Kitts, with dreams of becoming a journalist. Lucky soon finds work first at an Irish pub in Notting Hill – then as a rent collector for an unscrupulous slum landlord Peter Feldman.
Shadowing Lucky from his early struggles in London to the present day, Caryl Phillips paints a striking portrait of a flawed but vividly alive man grappling with the lifelong disillusionments of exile – and the uniquely complicated identity of the Windrush generation.
Another Man in the Street is an unforgettable story of loss, displacement, belonging, and the triumph of Black resilience - epic in scope and yet profoundly intimate; and a radical and timely portrait of immigrant London.
___________________________________________________
Praise for Caryl Phillips
'One of Britain's pre-eminent writers' Guardian
'One of the literary giants of our time' New York Times
'Phillips is a linguistic and cultural virtuoso' The Times
224 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 7, 2025
26 people are currently reading
687 people want to read
About the author
Caryl Phillips
52 books215 followers Caryl Phillips was born in St.Kitts and came to Britain at the age of four months. He grew up in Leeds, and studied English Literature at Oxford University.
He began writing for the theatre and his plays include Strange Fruit (1980), Where There is Darkness (1982) and The Shelter (1983). He won the BBC Giles Cooper Award for Best Radio Play of the year with The Wasted Years (1984). He has written many dramas and documentaries for radio and television, including, in 1996, the three-hour film of his own novel The Final Passage. He wrote the screenplay for the film Playing Away (1986) and his screenplay for the Merchant Ivory adaptation of V.S.Naipaul's The Mystic Masseur (2001) won the Silver Ombu for best screenplay at the Mar Del Plata film festival in Argentina.
His novels are: The Final Passage (1985), A State of Independence (1986), Higher Ground (1989), Cambridge (1991), Crossing the River (1993), The Nature of Blood (1997), A Distant Shore (2003), Dancing in the Dark (2005), In the Falling Snow (2009), The Lost Child (2015), A View of the Empire at Sunset (2018) and Another Man in the Street (2025). His non-fiction: The European Tribe (1987), The Atlantic Sound (2000), A New World Order (2001), Foreigners (2007), and Colour Me English (2011). He is the editor of two anthologies: Extravagant Strangers: A Literature of Belonging (1997) and The Right Set: An Anthology of Writing on Tennis (1999). His work has been translated into over a dozen languages.
He was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 1992 and was on the 1993 Granta list of Best of Young British Writers. His literary awards include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a British Council Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, and Britain's oldest literary award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, for Crossing the River which was also shortlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize. A Distant Shore was longlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize, and won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers Prize; Dancing in the Dark won the 2006 PEN/Beyond the Margins Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of the Arts, and recipient of the 2013 Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Award for Excellence.
He has taught at universities in Ghana, Sweden, Singapore, Barbados, India, and the United States, and in 1999 was the University of the West Indies Humanities Scholar of the Year. In 2002-3 he was a Fellow at the Centre for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Formerly Henry R. Luce Professor of Migration and Social Order at Columbia University, he is presently Professor of English at Yale University. He is an Honorary Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford University.
A regular contributor to The Guardian and The New Republic, his most recent book is, Another Man in the Street.
(taken from carylphillips.com official web site)
He began writing for the theatre and his plays include Strange Fruit (1980), Where There is Darkness (1982) and The Shelter (1983). He won the BBC Giles Cooper Award for Best Radio Play of the year with The Wasted Years (1984). He has written many dramas and documentaries for radio and television, including, in 1996, the three-hour film of his own novel The Final Passage. He wrote the screenplay for the film Playing Away (1986) and his screenplay for the Merchant Ivory adaptation of V.S.Naipaul's The Mystic Masseur (2001) won the Silver Ombu for best screenplay at the Mar Del Plata film festival in Argentina.
His novels are: The Final Passage (1985), A State of Independence (1986), Higher Ground (1989), Cambridge (1991), Crossing the River (1993), The Nature of Blood (1997), A Distant Shore (2003), Dancing in the Dark (2005), In the Falling Snow (2009), The Lost Child (2015), A View of the Empire at Sunset (2018) and Another Man in the Street (2025). His non-fiction: The European Tribe (1987), The Atlantic Sound (2000), A New World Order (2001), Foreigners (2007), and Colour Me English (2011). He is the editor of two anthologies: Extravagant Strangers: A Literature of Belonging (1997) and The Right Set: An Anthology of Writing on Tennis (1999). His work has been translated into over a dozen languages.
He was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 1992 and was on the 1993 Granta list of Best of Young British Writers. His literary awards include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a British Council Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, and Britain's oldest literary award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, for Crossing the River which was also shortlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize. A Distant Shore was longlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize, and won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers Prize; Dancing in the Dark won the 2006 PEN/Beyond the Margins Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of the Arts, and recipient of the 2013 Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Award for Excellence.
He has taught at universities in Ghana, Sweden, Singapore, Barbados, India, and the United States, and in 1999 was the University of the West Indies Humanities Scholar of the Year. In 2002-3 he was a Fellow at the Centre for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Formerly Henry R. Luce Professor of Migration and Social Order at Columbia University, he is presently Professor of English at Yale University. He is an Honorary Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford University.
A regular contributor to The Guardian and The New Republic, his most recent book is, Another Man in the Street.
(taken from carylphillips.com official web site)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
January 24, 2025
I was attracted to this book because of the authorband the book's subject matter.
Based on the blurb, I was expecting Victor's life and experiences in Britain to be the main focus of the book but this wasn't actually the case. Although some chapters are written from his point of view, the stories of other characters, each of whom have a connection to Victor, form a substantial part of the book. These include Peter Feldman, who bears a striking similarity to notorious slum landlord Peter Rachman, and two women - Ruth and Lorna - with whom Victor has a relationship.
The book's disjointed structure made it a challenge. In some chapters there are sudden shifts from past (the 1960's) to the present (there's a mention of the London Olympics) and back again, which I found confusing. Trying to make sense of the changes in timeline distracted me from fully immersing myself in the story.
Although I admired the way the author was able to take us inside the heads of the book's characters and his depiction of 1960s London, I would have liked more focus on Victor and a more linear narrative structure.
Based on the blurb, I was expecting Victor's life and experiences in Britain to be the main focus of the book but this wasn't actually the case. Although some chapters are written from his point of view, the stories of other characters, each of whom have a connection to Victor, form a substantial part of the book. These include Peter Feldman, who bears a striking similarity to notorious slum landlord Peter Rachman, and two women - Ruth and Lorna - with whom Victor has a relationship.
The book's disjointed structure made it a challenge. In some chapters there are sudden shifts from past (the 1960's) to the present (there's a mention of the London Olympics) and back again, which I found confusing. Trying to make sense of the changes in timeline distracted me from fully immersing myself in the story.
Although I admired the way the author was able to take us inside the heads of the book's characters and his depiction of 1960s London, I would have liked more focus on Victor and a more linear narrative structure.
February 7, 2025
"The past will offer no bridge towards a future for you"
"A lonely man adrift in the world, who didn't yet understand how vulnerable he was
Love, life, hopes and dreams, failures, losses and mistakes..
Another Man in the Street is a superb read.
This primarily the tale of Victor Johnson who travels to England from St Kitts in the 1960s with a belief of success and dreams in a promised land.
This is a non-linear story and weaves back and forth between key moments in Victor's life and the people around him; Ruth his partner of many years; his wife Lucy and mother to his son Leon; Peter the man who escaping his own darker past places his belief in Victor to join him in a world of dubious business and Claude who publishes a weekly newspaper - West Indian News.
Everyone is running from something in the hope of a better life but as the stories of the group interweave and unravel tragedies and regrets come to the fore-Victor's search for happiness, recognition are not easily achieved as he runs from the past and cannot find an inner peace in this land of exile.
It is the stories of all the characters that make this such rich novel. Ruth is the character that grabs you as a reader- her desire for love and her support for Victor and the price she pays.
A moving and powerful read -hooked from the first page - and with the desires of many to still travel to England to fulfil their dreams- the story is as relevant to life now and the challenges facing so so many as it was over the last seven decades.
"A lonely man adrift in the world, who didn't yet understand how vulnerable he was
Love, life, hopes and dreams, failures, losses and mistakes..
Another Man in the Street is a superb read.
This primarily the tale of Victor Johnson who travels to England from St Kitts in the 1960s with a belief of success and dreams in a promised land.
This is a non-linear story and weaves back and forth between key moments in Victor's life and the people around him; Ruth his partner of many years; his wife Lucy and mother to his son Leon; Peter the man who escaping his own darker past places his belief in Victor to join him in a world of dubious business and Claude who publishes a weekly newspaper - West Indian News.
Everyone is running from something in the hope of a better life but as the stories of the group interweave and unravel tragedies and regrets come to the fore-Victor's search for happiness, recognition are not easily achieved as he runs from the past and cannot find an inner peace in this land of exile.
It is the stories of all the characters that make this such rich novel. Ruth is the character that grabs you as a reader- her desire for love and her support for Victor and the price she pays.
A moving and powerful read -hooked from the first page - and with the desires of many to still travel to England to fulfil their dreams- the story is as relevant to life now and the challenges facing so so many as it was over the last seven decades.
October 7, 2024
…the thought of maybe one day leaving the country and beginning again, back home, momentarily lifts your spirits, even though you know you are trapped in England. from Another Man in the Street by Caryl Phillips
Victor wanted more from life than cutting sugar cane. He had been a bookish boy who longed to be a writer. At twenty-seven, he left his home in the Caribbean for the England. He found a job at a bar, then lucked into a job as a rent collector for another immigrant with a tragic background. He began writing for a newspaper. It turned into a career. He gained a white, educated girlfriend (no matter that he had left a wife and child behind) who herself had left home for an imagined better life, becoming a secretary.
But in 1960s England, the immigrant dream of a new life never turned out the way one imagined. I tried to hold on to dignity, Victor tells his girlfriend, knowing “full well that all you people see is the colour and not the man.”
The story is told from different points in time and from the viewpoints of Victor, his boss Peter, and Ruth, who had been Peter’s love before Victor stole her away.
Victor finds those who are sympathetic to his plight as an immigrant. But the wider attitude is anti-immigrant, those who resent the influx of people from the colonies. As one character states, “The real worry for us Englishmen is that we’re bloody well running out of colonies…But you lot need us, don’t you? We make things all nice and easy for you, don’t we? Cheap passage to England, no questions asked. Loose women and lots of jobs.”
Our sympathy for Victor wavers as we learn his ruthlessness in his pursuit of bettering his life. It took a lifetime for Victor to realize what he had lost in England, yet his grappling with his choices at end of life redeems him in our eyes.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.
Victor wanted more from life than cutting sugar cane. He had been a bookish boy who longed to be a writer. At twenty-seven, he left his home in the Caribbean for the England. He found a job at a bar, then lucked into a job as a rent collector for another immigrant with a tragic background. He began writing for a newspaper. It turned into a career. He gained a white, educated girlfriend (no matter that he had left a wife and child behind) who herself had left home for an imagined better life, becoming a secretary.
But in 1960s England, the immigrant dream of a new life never turned out the way one imagined. I tried to hold on to dignity, Victor tells his girlfriend, knowing “full well that all you people see is the colour and not the man.”
The story is told from different points in time and from the viewpoints of Victor, his boss Peter, and Ruth, who had been Peter’s love before Victor stole her away.
Victor finds those who are sympathetic to his plight as an immigrant. But the wider attitude is anti-immigrant, those who resent the influx of people from the colonies. As one character states, “The real worry for us Englishmen is that we’re bloody well running out of colonies…But you lot need us, don’t you? We make things all nice and easy for you, don’t we? Cheap passage to England, no questions asked. Loose women and lots of jobs.”
Our sympathy for Victor wavers as we learn his ruthlessness in his pursuit of bettering his life. It took a lifetime for Victor to realize what he had lost in England, yet his grappling with his choices at end of life redeems him in our eyes.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.
July 22, 2024
Beautifully written tale of Victor who leaves his homeland of St. Kitts to try his luck in England.
This is England of the 1960s, post Windrush. The story has Victor as the main character but introduces others with whom he interacts. We hear their stories too and these are interesting and moving. Lorna is his wife whom he left behind in St Kitts, Peter is a Polish Jew who gives Victor a job, and who has his own story of being an immigrant, Ruth is Peter’s English girlfriend who leaves him for Victor.
I found every character’s story really engaging. I loved the way they interlocked and went back and forth in time. I enjoyed it so much I finished it in a long afternoon’s reading. I had never read Caryl Phillips before but will be checking out his previous work.
I read a proof copy provided by NetGalley and the publishers. Recommended.
This is England of the 1960s, post Windrush. The story has Victor as the main character but introduces others with whom he interacts. We hear their stories too and these are interesting and moving. Lorna is his wife whom he left behind in St Kitts, Peter is a Polish Jew who gives Victor a job, and who has his own story of being an immigrant, Ruth is Peter’s English girlfriend who leaves him for Victor.
I found every character’s story really engaging. I loved the way they interlocked and went back and forth in time. I enjoyed it so much I finished it in a long afternoon’s reading. I had never read Caryl Phillips before but will be checking out his previous work.
I read a proof copy provided by NetGalley and the publishers. Recommended.
February 2, 2025
Another Man in The Street opens in the early sixties with Victory Johnson leaving St. Kitts and Nevis behind with his family for London. He dreams of becoming a reporter and writer in London, one thing he plans on never doing is returning to his island home of St. Kitts and Nevis. Upon arriving in London, Victory becomes a rent collector, collecting rent from Caribbean nationals like himself. Victory finds that making a life in London is not as easy as he thought it would be. So many challenges keep coming up, and he wonders will be make his dream.
This book explores themes of identity, immigration, regret, belonging and how it can be for the Windrush generation. I did enjoy this story, I felt it meandered a little too much.
This book explores themes of identity, immigration, regret, belonging and how it can be for the Windrush generation. I did enjoy this story, I felt it meandered a little too much.
February 11, 2025
It’s difficult to describe this story because it meanders through time, character’s pov, and place. Yet, the writing is excellent. Each storyline feels heartfelt and genuine. I’d recommend this for the writing. However, it is sad, tragic, and depressing. I’m left wondering if Caryl Phillips is trying to tell the reader, how one lives his/her life when young, has consequences later in life. It’s still a mystery to me.
June 29, 2025
I love when Haywood Hill sends me books I never would have discovered!
August 5, 2024
The story starts out With “a man” on a ship leaving his home St Kitts to come to England with the intention of starting a new life. He’s left behind his family, although he didn’t get along with his father, and his friends. As a presumedly black man (no we’re in the story mentions colour except for Lucky) he’s hoping that he’ll be treated fairly based on his worth and not by the colour of his skin, but he is soon to learn that this is not the case.
Apparently, the story is based around a character called Lucky and his exploits in finding somewhere to live and work. But the narrative seems to be from the perspective of “a man” and how his life is turning out. He is initially following lucky around because they work together in Mr. Wilson‘s pub. But it seems that when Lucky met up with Mr Feldman they had “the man“ assaulted. So, once he recovered two weeks later, he went to the pub where there was no longer a job to him, and he ended up going back to Liverpool. There he falls in love with Betty and it’s written that 10 years later they have a son and a daughter aged eight and six respectively.
I think this book could’ve been written in a far better way to help the reader find context within it. The chapters are much too long and the paragraphs would have been better as a chapter. This is because the paragraphs are also too long in themselves. The paragraphs could’ve been titled and dated for context because the book has you going backwards and forwards and you really don’t know where you are whilst reading the book. I found myself re-reading old paragraphs to figure out the date and timeline of the paragraphs to get an idea of what the characters were actually going through. A lot of it is repeated within the flashbacks and also in the flash forwards. So it was a terribly hard and difficult book to read as it didn’t make any sense because of the layout of the paragraphs. I feel this book should really go back to the editors for rewriting, only then will this book be actually quite good because it does have good content in places and the context of the book is good.
Apparently, the story is based around a character called Lucky and his exploits in finding somewhere to live and work. But the narrative seems to be from the perspective of “a man” and how his life is turning out. He is initially following lucky around because they work together in Mr. Wilson‘s pub. But it seems that when Lucky met up with Mr Feldman they had “the man“ assaulted. So, once he recovered two weeks later, he went to the pub where there was no longer a job to him, and he ended up going back to Liverpool. There he falls in love with Betty and it’s written that 10 years later they have a son and a daughter aged eight and six respectively.
I think this book could’ve been written in a far better way to help the reader find context within it. The chapters are much too long and the paragraphs would have been better as a chapter. This is because the paragraphs are also too long in themselves. The paragraphs could’ve been titled and dated for context because the book has you going backwards and forwards and you really don’t know where you are whilst reading the book. I found myself re-reading old paragraphs to figure out the date and timeline of the paragraphs to get an idea of what the characters were actually going through. A lot of it is repeated within the flashbacks and also in the flash forwards. So it was a terribly hard and difficult book to read as it didn’t make any sense because of the layout of the paragraphs. I feel this book should really go back to the editors for rewriting, only then will this book be actually quite good because it does have good content in places and the context of the book is good.
March 25, 2025
Three characters with closely connected narratives. Interesting and engaging but brief and lacked the power that comes from depth. More a miniseries of vignettes.
March 30, 2025
This novel recounts the lived experiences of various characters within the Windrush generation as they arrive in Britain to find prosperity. Exploring matters of community, migration, belonging and class, the different stories are highly intersected and show the diversity of narratives that surrounded the changing image of London during the 1950s until 1980s. Though I believe the novel could have been more detailed in parts, the combination of various different lives resulted in the feel of a collection of short stories that provided a distinct picture of the time. Overall, a promising work by Philips that I look forward to hearing more about during an upcoming event with the author!
October 26, 2025
The book is praised for its ambitious scope, delving into themes of identity, migration, and resilience through the story of Victor Johnson, a young immigrant from St. Kitts who comes to London. It is described as epic in sweep and intimate in its portrayal of lives caught between different worlds. It explores moving to the mother country and the impacts to multiple character. Love the authors use of small nuggets to convey broader meanings
January 16, 2025
After a second port and lemon, Ruth decides to finish her drink and make her slow way back to the tube station and what will now be an early afternoon journey to the hospital. As Ruth leaves the pub, she looks around and imagines that everybody has probably lost something and needs some kind of help. My God, in her own small life she has lost sight of so much. Paul, the father of her child. Lost. Her child, Lucy. Lost. Peter. Lost. Even her mum and dad. Lost. But not Victor. He has a quality about him that has always made her believe that he needs her, even though his neglectful behaviour has often suggested otherwise. Furthermore, with Victor, for some reason, she has always found it difficult to become angry with him.
I first came across the Kittitian-British novelist Caryl Philipps in 2003-4 when I spent two memorable holidays on the Caribbean Island of St Kitts and read a least two of his novels in early 2004 (the very year when I started recording my reading): ”Final passage” (his debut) and “A Distant Shore” (then his most recent and 7th novel which went on to win the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize). His 5th novel “Crossing The River” won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was Booker shortlisted in 1993 (where it had strong support from some judges).
Some twenty years later I came to this – his (I think) 13th novel to be published in early 2025 and found it much more complex than I had expected from its seemingly rather conventional beginnings.
The book opens in the early sixties, on a banana boat full of emigrants crossing from the Caribbean to England, in the second week of its slow crossing, and in the first party voice of one such emigrant Victor, from St Kitts, as he uneasily shares a drink on deck with the condescending Captain and an overanxious new crewman. The quietly determined Victor we gather has saved up his earnings from a unpaid journalism/paid paper delivery job and left his family (particularly his bitter, overbearing and rum-addicted father) and his girlfriend (who had already encouraged him to move out from home) to try and make something of himself in England (home of the BBC world service) – with some hidden ambitions to be a newspaper writer but under no illusions as to the struggles ahead.
But then in the next chapter we find ourselves amongst the cast of staff in a rapidly declining London pub – our narrator an (I think() unnamed 26 year old man who – also to get away from an alcoholic father - moved down from Liverpool “to do the Dick Whittington thing” at 16, served for years as an apprentice printer (which he hated) and after a brief return to Liverpool (only for his mother to die and the family home be repossessed) returned to London and took up bar work. He describes all of the staff which includes an unemployed-actor Charlie in his young twenties and a black man Lucky (we realise Victor) – the narrator getting involved unsuccessfully in Lucky’s struggles against racist landlords, which eventually end with Lucky moving into the pub before moving away to a “rent collecting caper with a Jew boy”. What is interesting and admirable about this lengthy chapter is that while it fills in a crucial stage in Victor’s life it is not centred there, instead ranging over characters and time – many years into the narrator’s future including an encounter with the landlord still exercised about Lucky leaving him “Do you remember … if I treated him badly ……. You know I’ve thought about this a lot, I gave him a job, a place to sleep, I was decent to him, but for some reasons they don’t want to know us do they? I’m right about this aren’t I? They just don’t want to know”
A third chapter (with Victor as third person character) moves Victor’s life past his rent collecting time – instead working in a council funded position as a journalist for “Race Now” (a more radical rebrand of what was “West Indian News”) as he discusses with his partner Ruth whether to accept a job with a national newspaper some time in the late 1970s I think as his quietly held ambitions seem about to be realised: “He understood that everything he had been doing for the past dozen or so years in England had been a kind of preparation for where his life was now delicately poised”.
We then move forward towards almost the end of Victor’s life and the third party voice of Ruth. Victor is in hospital (and slightly oddly Charlie – now a much older unemployed actor after a stint in Australia has reappeared on the scene, effectively stalking Victor’s flat). Ruth we piece together was the assistant for Peter – the landlord who years before in the pub approached Victor to join him as a rent collector (figuring a Caribbean rent collector would have more and more acceptable success with his black tenants). This lengthy chapter (it takes up more than a third of the book) is as impressively as the second – our viewpoint shifts between Ruth, Peter and Victor and back and forth in time- we learn not just of Victor (and the failure of his journalistic dreams) but of Ruth’s past (baby out of wedlock and forced given up for adoption, move to London to start life again at a secretarial college, decision to quit college early to take a job with Peter – the two living together but in a sexless relationship, her taking up with Victor after he works with Peter – effectively a double portrayal with Victor then quitting the job, the sudden revelation that Victor has both a wife Lorna and a son in St Kitts, the reappearance of Ruth’s birth child but the latter’s unwillingness to accept Ruth’s – in her view – subservient relationship to Victor) but also of Peter (an Eastern European Jewish émigré whose parents evacuated him to the countryside ahead of the pogroms but who went back for them and ended up in some form of camp before making his way to London post war where he gradually builds a landlord business) and much more.
Again the chapter was impressive for me in its ability to range over time and voice – and a fifth chapter (told from the viewpoint of Lorna) achieves that in a different way – starting back when Victor was still a teenager, going forwards many years and all told in a convincing second person “you sense that people are always moving away from you; they are quick to smile and then they flee. It was like when you were a girl. But then there was Victor. He listened to you. The boy under the bridge. But now you are a woman, and it is like this again with people always moving away from you”
After a sixth chapter returns to Ruth and completes Victor’s life – a seventh takes us to Peter many years later working as an apartment block superintendent in New York (his landlord business in London having long ago collapsed under financial irregularities) but with Peter’s eye for the underdog still present as well as the author’s ability to sketch another range of characters and complex lives in the block; and an eighth gives us Victor’s final journey from his hospital bed.
Overall, I was really impressed by the craftmanship of this book – its switch of voice, time, character and the way in which the ostensible central character is that we are most distanced from, will not I think appeal to lovers of more conventional fiction but worked really well for me. And I think what also stood out was how much life the author managed to pack into only around 240 well-spaced pages.
It feels like Philipps is an author the Booker has overlooked for a long time now (some 30 years and 8 novels) but its still an automatic entry for the publisher and would I think make a great addition to the longlist.
My thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley
December 23, 2024
3.5 rounded down.
I found this short novel moving at times but the structure felt quite disjointed and I felt the main character, Victor, remained quite distant. We follow him - hearing his own voice only in the first chapter - as he leaves St Kitts for London as part of the Windrush generation, hoping to trade his job delivering newspapers to become a journalist. After this first chapter, we move between different characters and their interactions, sometimes quite late, with Victor: his colleagues and customers in the pub where he works, his new employer Peter for whom he becomes a rent collector, the wife and son he left behind, his new partner Ruth, his boss at the West Indies newspaper he writes for. Peter, a Polish Holocaust survivor, is given almost a third of the book, and while it was interesting to read, at times Victor disappeared for too long and the book felt more like a collection of ideas and stories than a linear story of one Black man trying to belong in a country that isn't welcoming.
The writing was pleasant, and the last few chapters very moving; but I wanted more.
Free ARC sent by Netgalley.
I found this short novel moving at times but the structure felt quite disjointed and I felt the main character, Victor, remained quite distant. We follow him - hearing his own voice only in the first chapter - as he leaves St Kitts for London as part of the Windrush generation, hoping to trade his job delivering newspapers to become a journalist. After this first chapter, we move between different characters and their interactions, sometimes quite late, with Victor: his colleagues and customers in the pub where he works, his new employer Peter for whom he becomes a rent collector, the wife and son he left behind, his new partner Ruth, his boss at the West Indies newspaper he writes for. Peter, a Polish Holocaust survivor, is given almost a third of the book, and while it was interesting to read, at times Victor disappeared for too long and the book felt more like a collection of ideas and stories than a linear story of one Black man trying to belong in a country that isn't welcoming.
The writing was pleasant, and the last few chapters very moving; but I wanted more.
Free ARC sent by Netgalley.
December 27, 2024
Victor arrives in England from St Kitts in mid-1960’s England - the novel follows his life and career to the present day.
Firstly, let’s praise the prose, which achieves a lot with its simple, first person narrative. Structurally, is where the novel’s ambition falls short. Our sympathies are with Victor in the early part of the novel, which switches when we learn more of his character in the final third. The narrative flashes back and forth and often, scenes break for decades to pass.
The characters are well drawn (I particularly like Victor’s first British friend, a Scouse barman), but the author dispenses with them far too quickly. And again, it follows the recent trend of short, literary novels where the construction seems more important than the actual substance.
It’s pitched as a post-Windrush novel of black British experience, but it is too brief, too inconclusive and on the edge of perfection to completely be that. It’s published by Bloomsbury on 16th Jan, 2025 and I thank them for a preview copy. #anothermaninthestreet
Firstly, let’s praise the prose, which achieves a lot with its simple, first person narrative. Structurally, is where the novel’s ambition falls short. Our sympathies are with Victor in the early part of the novel, which switches when we learn more of his character in the final third. The narrative flashes back and forth and often, scenes break for decades to pass.
The characters are well drawn (I particularly like Victor’s first British friend, a Scouse barman), but the author dispenses with them far too quickly. And again, it follows the recent trend of short, literary novels where the construction seems more important than the actual substance.
It’s pitched as a post-Windrush novel of black British experience, but it is too brief, too inconclusive and on the edge of perfection to completely be that. It’s published by Bloomsbury on 16th Jan, 2025 and I thank them for a preview copy. #anothermaninthestreet
May 13, 2025
Sadly this book didn’t live up to expectation and I was disappointed with the plot. It seemed to take off then fade away with every chapter. And while I liked that each chapter almost read as a short story, it got more and more irritating that Victor played a a lesser part.
I gave up half way through!
I gave up half way through!
January 15, 2025
I’d be curious to hear why Phillips paces and orders the story the way he does. I get hearing different perspectives. But a situation’s finality followed by a doubling or tripling back makes Another Man in the Street feel too segmented.
March 7, 2025
I didn’t think the characters were good, but the story was interesting
March 17, 2025
When we meet someone who becomes a friend, initially we know little about them. Over time we discover more: their past, their present, their work and hobbies, their hopes for the future, their fears and phobias and so forth. But we don't discover these in any particular order; we don't necessarily learn about their childhood first, we ourselves have to piece together all these bits from our friend's life story to create a narrative. That process is similar to what the reader has to do when reading Caryl Phillips' latest novel, the evocative, moving, at times confusing and always powerful "Another Man in the Street".
The central character is Victor who in the opening chapter is emigrating from his Caribbean home of St Kitts (where the author himself was born) to England in the early 1960s, with hopes of becoming a journalist. During the course of the novel, we learn of Victor's work as a barman in a run down pub, his job as a rent collector and his initial success as a journalist.
His story is told using both first and third person narrative, as well as in one section the rarely used second person. We soon discover, thanks to passages where the story is told from the perspectives of other characters, that Victor is not the most reliable witness of his life and of those he meets, and in each chapter we discover more about him - and others, with the new information often changing what we thought we knew of him.
All the main characters are outsiders who have been emotionally damaged by their experiences. Apart from Victor, whose experiences of racism in late 20th century is at the heart of the novel, there are Peter and Ruth.
Peter is a property owner who Victor works for, collecting rents from Peter's tenants. At first, Peter comes across as a money grabbing landlord, but as we learn more about his background, we discover that Peter - like Victor - is an immigrant. Peter - an anglicised version of his original name Petr - is a Jewish survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. Because he is white, he is able to "pass" in ways Victor can't. But he knows from the fate of his aunt who married a Christian in Germany, that "passing" has its limits. And in any case takes its emotional toll.
When we first meet her, Ruth is also employed by Peter, as a secretary. We later discover that Ruth too is an outsider who moved to London from Yorkshire and her emotionally constrained upbringing. She is a lonely and sad woman who was called a "slag" by her mother when she got pregnant. Like so many unmarried mothers of the time, her baby was taken from her shortly after birth. She is not only employed by Peter, she also shares his bed, but their relationship is sexless. She eventually forms a relationship with Victor, one that becomes permanent despite Victor's lies of both commission and omission, not the least being that he hides the fact he has a wife and child elsewhere.
There are other flawed characters, such as the wannabe actor Charlie and Claude, the editor of a newspaper aimed at London's growing Caribbean community.
This is a profound novel about the experiences of outsiders trying to build lives in the anonymous and often cold (both literally and figuratively) streets of London.
The central character is Victor who in the opening chapter is emigrating from his Caribbean home of St Kitts (where the author himself was born) to England in the early 1960s, with hopes of becoming a journalist. During the course of the novel, we learn of Victor's work as a barman in a run down pub, his job as a rent collector and his initial success as a journalist.
His story is told using both first and third person narrative, as well as in one section the rarely used second person. We soon discover, thanks to passages where the story is told from the perspectives of other characters, that Victor is not the most reliable witness of his life and of those he meets, and in each chapter we discover more about him - and others, with the new information often changing what we thought we knew of him.
All the main characters are outsiders who have been emotionally damaged by their experiences. Apart from Victor, whose experiences of racism in late 20th century is at the heart of the novel, there are Peter and Ruth.
Peter is a property owner who Victor works for, collecting rents from Peter's tenants. At first, Peter comes across as a money grabbing landlord, but as we learn more about his background, we discover that Peter - like Victor - is an immigrant. Peter - an anglicised version of his original name Petr - is a Jewish survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. Because he is white, he is able to "pass" in ways Victor can't. But he knows from the fate of his aunt who married a Christian in Germany, that "passing" has its limits. And in any case takes its emotional toll.
When we first meet her, Ruth is also employed by Peter, as a secretary. We later discover that Ruth too is an outsider who moved to London from Yorkshire and her emotionally constrained upbringing. She is a lonely and sad woman who was called a "slag" by her mother when she got pregnant. Like so many unmarried mothers of the time, her baby was taken from her shortly after birth. She is not only employed by Peter, she also shares his bed, but their relationship is sexless. She eventually forms a relationship with Victor, one that becomes permanent despite Victor's lies of both commission and omission, not the least being that he hides the fact he has a wife and child elsewhere.
There are other flawed characters, such as the wannabe actor Charlie and Claude, the editor of a newspaper aimed at London's growing Caribbean community.
This is a profound novel about the experiences of outsiders trying to build lives in the anonymous and often cold (both literally and figuratively) streets of London.
May 18, 2025
Set against the backdrop of 1960s London, and told from multiples perspectives and in multiple voices, this compelling novel follows the career of Victor “Lucky” Johnson, a young man from St Kitts who moves to England with the ambition to become a journalist. But it’s not long before disillusionment sets in, not least because the welcome he expected on arriving in the Mother Country doesn't transpire. He is forced to take on some menial jobs, including working as a rent collector for a morally ambiguous landlord Peter Feldman. Clearly based on the infamous landlord Rackman, the portrait here is largely sympathetic, as although it is perhaps indefensible to make money from renting substandard accommodation, this was at a time when no one else was willing to rent to West Indians, and in fact very few of his tenants had a bad word to say for him. The portrait of Feldman/Rackman is nuanced and though-provoking and the reader can’t help having some sympathy for him when the trajectory of his life doesn’t pan out too well. Victor too is portrayed with nuance. He makes some questionable decisions, and his family relationships aren’t always to his credit. The novel explores the immigrant experience, displacement and the search of belonging with empathy and insight. With Feldman’s back story of the Holocaust and Victor’s of colonialism, it’s a multi-layered novel, bleak certainly, and a compelling narrative, which is well-paced, well-written, unpredictable and always interesting.
February 9, 2025
We are all palimpsests
—
In a novel that shifts perspectives and time in careful sentences, we circle Victor, a man ill at ease wherever he is. We meet him travelling from St Kitts in the Sixties to an England that is nowhere as welcoming as the dream of England might be; and as a portrait of the man emerges, so do the people around him, meeting them as children, as teenagers, as new adults, in mid-life, in old age. We enter their dreams, face their disappointments, see the paths that might have been, pierce the lies they tell, even to themselves, suffer the losses they never knew were gone until it’s too late.
And at the same time, this stealthy book is a portrait of England, of the United Kingdom, of the Commonwealth. Hinting but never hectoring, it uses London as a stand-in for the idea of the Mother Country, as a place where you’re both welcome and not, whether you’re part of the empire that was or fleeing war and desolation, or even simply the child of an uncaring family.
Told in a thickly braided plait of short stories, this novel appears simple on the surface but contains multitudes.
Four and a half stars, rounded up to five.
—
In a novel that shifts perspectives and time in careful sentences, we circle Victor, a man ill at ease wherever he is. We meet him travelling from St Kitts in the Sixties to an England that is nowhere as welcoming as the dream of England might be; and as a portrait of the man emerges, so do the people around him, meeting them as children, as teenagers, as new adults, in mid-life, in old age. We enter their dreams, face their disappointments, see the paths that might have been, pierce the lies they tell, even to themselves, suffer the losses they never knew were gone until it’s too late.
And at the same time, this stealthy book is a portrait of England, of the United Kingdom, of the Commonwealth. Hinting but never hectoring, it uses London as a stand-in for the idea of the Mother Country, as a place where you’re both welcome and not, whether you’re part of the empire that was or fleeing war and desolation, or even simply the child of an uncaring family.
Told in a thickly braided plait of short stories, this novel appears simple on the surface but contains multitudes.
Four and a half stars, rounded up to five.
September 14, 2025
"When you leave, you must travel with as little luggage as possible. Please, not even memories" (Phillips 212).
A gorgeous, elegiac novel about not belonging. This is my third book by Mr. Phillips I have read in 2025, and having read this back to back with "A View of the Empire at Sunset"- he is a master chronicler of Postcolonial angst. I have read much of Nobel Prize winning author Abdulrazak Gurnah's work this year, and I am startled to see the commonalities of loss and regret that pervade both authors' themes.
This book is about three lonely souls: Victor, an aspiring journalist from the Caribbean who finds himself in London during the 1960's. It is also about the two people in which Victor will be linked with forever: Peter, his employer- a white Englishman who is a sympathetic yet shady landlord. And then there is Ruth, Peter's secretary. This trio of characters are often bereft, lonely and trying to find solace within one another's company.
The novel weaves its global setting between the Caribbean, a very bleak England, and a contemporary Brooklyn, New York. What is arresting about Mr. Phillips' novel is that the first chapters are centered and written in the first person- in Victor's voice, He begins the novel young and hopeful, ready to change the world as a journalist. Suddenly, an eerie third person narrator takes over. This voice silences Victor's and thus, a tale of displacement and postcolonial trauma and angst continues.
Victor is othered in England because of classism and racism from white people. He is often not heard, and is a sounding board for those who want to project their frustrations of their lives to him. As he befriends Peter, he begins a lifelong affair with Ruth, who is presented as a sad sack of a person, a shell of a human being. She's married by depression and an unhappy relationship with her daughter Lucy. Victor, Peter and Ruth are linked by both friendship, and of sex. But it's out of necessity, a means to keep going. It's not out of love, it's simply just being.
This is the most mournful of Caryl Phillips' novels I've read. I've read "Cambridge", "Foreigners" and "Dancing in the Dark" in the last 20 years. This is the saddest one that seems most personal to him. Victor is written as a character that comes out of love- but never gets any of it. The themes of postcolonial displacement and not belonging lingers like a dark, heavy cloud that does not let up. It's a beautiful, slow burn of a character study of three people that just seem they will never belong. And that's true for so many.
A gorgeous, elegiac novel about not belonging. This is my third book by Mr. Phillips I have read in 2025, and having read this back to back with "A View of the Empire at Sunset"- he is a master chronicler of Postcolonial angst. I have read much of Nobel Prize winning author Abdulrazak Gurnah's work this year, and I am startled to see the commonalities of loss and regret that pervade both authors' themes.
This book is about three lonely souls: Victor, an aspiring journalist from the Caribbean who finds himself in London during the 1960's. It is also about the two people in which Victor will be linked with forever: Peter, his employer- a white Englishman who is a sympathetic yet shady landlord. And then there is Ruth, Peter's secretary. This trio of characters are often bereft, lonely and trying to find solace within one another's company.
The novel weaves its global setting between the Caribbean, a very bleak England, and a contemporary Brooklyn, New York. What is arresting about Mr. Phillips' novel is that the first chapters are centered and written in the first person- in Victor's voice, He begins the novel young and hopeful, ready to change the world as a journalist. Suddenly, an eerie third person narrator takes over. This voice silences Victor's and thus, a tale of displacement and postcolonial trauma and angst continues.
Victor is othered in England because of classism and racism from white people. He is often not heard, and is a sounding board for those who want to project their frustrations of their lives to him. As he befriends Peter, he begins a lifelong affair with Ruth, who is presented as a sad sack of a person, a shell of a human being. She's married by depression and an unhappy relationship with her daughter Lucy. Victor, Peter and Ruth are linked by both friendship, and of sex. But it's out of necessity, a means to keep going. It's not out of love, it's simply just being.
This is the most mournful of Caryl Phillips' novels I've read. I've read "Cambridge", "Foreigners" and "Dancing in the Dark" in the last 20 years. This is the saddest one that seems most personal to him. Victor is written as a character that comes out of love- but never gets any of it. The themes of postcolonial displacement and not belonging lingers like a dark, heavy cloud that does not let up. It's a beautiful, slow burn of a character study of three people that just seem they will never belong. And that's true for so many.
January 30, 2025
Thank you to the author, Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. My apologies for the delay in posting, I had several familial health challenges to contend with in the past month.
I may have had false expectations going into this book - since it was introduced as the story of Victor Johnson, a young immigrant from the Caribbean, I expected him to be the main focus/voice. Although some chapters were written from his POV, there were many others that were from the POV of other characters - and it was not always clear who this was and what their connection to Victor was. Additionally, there were time jumps back and forth, so overall I found this very disjointed and thus hard to really get into in any depth. The author was able to transport us back to 1960s London - but I would have liked more of a clear focus on Victor, and a less disjointed narrative.
I may have had false expectations going into this book - since it was introduced as the story of Victor Johnson, a young immigrant from the Caribbean, I expected him to be the main focus/voice. Although some chapters were written from his POV, there were many others that were from the POV of other characters - and it was not always clear who this was and what their connection to Victor was. Additionally, there were time jumps back and forth, so overall I found this very disjointed and thus hard to really get into in any depth. The author was able to transport us back to 1960s London - but I would have liked more of a clear focus on Victor, and a less disjointed narrative.
November 12, 2024
Some of the esoteric thinking is excellent on a par with Proust.
The storyline is very good.
The story is told from different characters perspectives in different timelines, and sometimes in a jumbled timeline.
Some parts were confusing.
If the story was told from the different characters perspectives in a flowing timeline I feel that the overstory would be enhanced and I would have loved it.
If the story had been told in different timelines from the characters each on there own, that might have worked.
All of this chopping and changing was just too much for me.
Overall I liked it, but I could have liked it more.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
The storyline is very good.
The story is told from different characters perspectives in different timelines, and sometimes in a jumbled timeline.
Some parts were confusing.
If the story was told from the different characters perspectives in a flowing timeline I feel that the overstory would be enhanced and I would have loved it.
If the story had been told in different timelines from the characters each on there own, that might have worked.
All of this chopping and changing was just too much for me.
Overall I liked it, but I could have liked it more.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
January 28, 2025
Another Phillips novel about displacement and disorientation. This is about a man who immigrates to London from St Kitts in the 1950s and the relationships he has in London - the Holocaust survivor he works for, the white secretary he gets involved with, the wife and child he leaves behind. The novel shifts point of view with each chapters and moves back and forth in time. It felt a bit like a grim BBC production, I never got under the surface of any of the characters.
There is something about Phillip's writing that is so flat and cold. It's a subject I'm interested in but not a great read for me.
There is something about Phillip's writing that is so flat and cold. It's a subject I'm interested in but not a great read for me.
July 1, 2025
While the narration jumped around in time and became increasingly fluid as the book went on, this was a deep and interesting look at migration experiences. Each character had a varying background, whether it was internal migration, immigration from an ethically similar country, or immigration from a colonized country as an adult or as a youth. All of their stories spoke to how isolating that experience can be and the hard choices it drives people to make. Although it was at times frustrating to watch characters make choices that hurt people, there was always the important perspective of the forces pushing them behind the scenes.
January 17, 2026
Disappointingly boring from one of my favorite authors. A long rambling postwar immigrant story set in England and populated by the most flawed, sick and psychologically impaired characters. A story that refuses to give the reader a single sentence of relief from the agonies of their distressing lives beginning with the main character's turbulent journey by sea from St. Kitts in the West Indies to his slow and pitiable death in an English hospital in the presence of indifferent caretakers and the absence of his distracted "wife".
May 14, 2025
Danny Sapani abley narrated this audiobook. Listening to it and I imagine reading this novel was like peeling the layers of an onion. The book moves back and forth through time. It tells the story of two men who emigrated to England after WWII. One was a Jewish refugees and the other person was from St. Kitts. The character who connected them both was Ruth who was native to England but was in some sense a refugee from her own past.
February 16, 2025
Another Man in the Street tells the story of Lucky, who immigrated to England from St. Kitts. We see his growth and challenges, and the author gives us great insight into another world.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Another Man in the Street is available now.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Another Man in the Street is available now.
March 9, 2025
poignant and deep
unpretentiously experimental, told entirely as if from memory,
a series of complete portraits of the interior lives of its protagonists. measured and affecting, a sort of book length argument for the unconquerability of trauma and the inescapability of the past. sad but enriching.
unpretentiously experimental, told entirely as if from memory,
a series of complete portraits of the interior lives of its protagonists. measured and affecting, a sort of book length argument for the unconquerability of trauma and the inescapability of the past. sad but enriching.
March 28, 2025
I found this book so disappointing especially because I really enjoyed some Caryl Phillips books and essays in the past. The concept was promising but the writing quality was not to his standard and the jumping in time style seemed like a device with no purpose. It was also unclear why he made Peter's history so vague- not even identifying where he came from.
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