Night in the World

by Sharon English

Brothers Justin and Oliver have never been close. Justin owns an iconic Toronto restaurant and lives with his wife and daughter in Baby Point. Oliver, a former environmental reporter, does admin for a gym and rents an attic apartment. Yet both men know their lives stand on the brink.

Intersecting the brothers' stories is Gabe, a budding but conflicted biologist enchanted by the underappreciated beauty of moths. As each character sets out to save what's falling apart, they're taken into the depths of the city and beyond - where avoiding catastrophe requires journeying in the dark.

Sharon English has penned a tender, powerful novel about the claims that places make on our hearts in an age of imminent collapse, and about ending our separation from each other and from nature - coming home, at least, to a beleaguered yet still beautiful world.

375 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2022

About the author

Sharon English is the author of the short story collections Uncomfortably Numb and Zero Gravity, and the newly released novel Night in the World.

Zero Gravity was long-listed for the Giller Prize, short-listed for the ReLit Award, and a Globe and Mail Best 100 title. It was recently translated into Serbian.

Night in the World (May 2022) has been described as "a splendid and searing novel, pressed up against the tremours of our times."

Reviews

[Lise Weil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Night in the World
Justin and Oliver are estranged brothers who are both nearing a breaking point in their lives; Gabe is a biologist in love with moths. With astonishing skill and insight, English immerses us completely in each of these characters’ psyches and their worlds: the world of night clubs and coke addiction, of anti-fracking activism, of academic research and perhaps most unforgettably, of moths. Shadowing all three lives is the fact of climate dissolution, and a relentlessly extractive and dissociated human world. As in Powers’ The Overstory, human and nonhuman life are densely entangled. Chapter titles alternate between “River” “Island” and “Lake” and water is what ultimately draws the three main characters together; the city of Toronto, where these bodies of water are located, is shown to be home to a vast urban wilderness. Night in the World is a novel about loss and endings but it also pulses with revelation: moonrise in a Toronto ravine, the nighttime miracle of moths,and bonds between humans that reassert themselves in unexpected, defiant, beautiful ways.

[Christie Billeci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book. Interesting characters. Relatable and smart stories. Cli-fi that tackles clean water, fracking, extinction of species, eco journalism, scientific studies, and how far modern humanity is from being a healthy part of the earth's systems.

[Anne Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

As one earlier reviewer asks: Why aren't more people reading this book? Night in the World is a beautifully written novel, with evocative settings, compelling characters and thought-provoking ideas. Themes of disintegration and breakdown are counter-balanced by the possibility of renewal, hope, and love. A couple of stand-out features: this novel is a rich portrait of Toronto, especially its secret natural spaces, as well as a nuanced exploration of early and later mid-life and its attendant crises. Much to enjoy on many levels.

[Rebecca Brams · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeous treasure of a book. The plot was compelling, and each of the three characters held their own in terms of my interest in them and my curiosity about their predicaments and how they would handle them. The writing was transcendent. Sharon English captures wonder, love, grief, overwhelm, especially about the natural world and our human place in it. Highly recommend.

[Janis Harper · Rating 5 out of 5]

A luminous novel, beautifully written, that gently probes layers of our created and natural worlds and asks some important questions. I learned about a Toronto I didn’t know existed, too! I’m going to read this author’s short fiction collections and hope for another novel.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this book was certainly interesting, though I don't necessarily think it lived up to its full potential. To start off with what I didn't like:
-- the pacing. There isn't anything wrong with slow-paced books, but I generally prefer faster reads. If the book is slow, then I want the characters to be very compelling.
-- On that note, WOW I absolutely couldn't stand Justin! I know that's the point -- but wow, reading his parts felt laborious and just made me annoyed because wow is he such an unlikeable character. The absolute nonsense he puts his wife and child through ... also, for me anyway, I don't feel like he experienced that much character growth, or at least not enough.
What I did like though:
-- Olivier and Gabe. I'd say the interactions between Oliver and Gabe were my fave, and they were interesting characters (though still could have been developed more). I also liked learning about moths through Gabe's chapters.
All in all, not bad, but overall I felt like something was missing for me. I felt a little underwhelmed by the end (though, I did really enjoy how Gabe's narrative with her thesis came to a conclusion).

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

So many intriguing ideas that went nowhere… I wanted to like this book so much but found myself being frustrated again and again by the lack of movement. Some parts of the novel felt like clippings of philosophical musings randomly thrown in to create importance to something that was already apparent.

My overall reaction is meh. The author certainly did her research, and I think the sources she cites in her acknowledgments will be much more interesting than this book.

[Rosie Kamp · Rating 2 out of 5]

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