The City Changes Its Face

By: Eimear McBride

Narrated by: Eimear McBride

It's 1995. Outside their grimy window, the city rushes by. But in the flat there is only Stephen and Eily. Their bodies, the tangled sheets. Unpacked boxes stacked in the kitchen and the total obsession of new love.

Eighteen months later, the flat feels different. Love is merging with reality. Stephen's teenage daughter has re-appeared, while Eily has made a choice, the consequences of which she cannot outrun. Now they face a reckoning for all that's been left unspoken – emotions, secrets and ambitions. Tonight, if they are to find one another again, what must be said aloud?

Love rallies against life. Time tells truths. The city changes its face.

©2025 Eimear McBride (P)2025 Bolinda Publishing

Critic reviews

'The City Changes its Face is an immersive battle between the faultlines dividing us and the bonds which unite us. McBride is a cartographer of the secret self, guiding us towards hidden treasure.' (Claire Kilroy, award-winning author of All Summer)

'She writes with beauty, wisdom and humour.' (The Guardian)

'A writer of remarkable power and originality.' (Times Literary Supplement)

'McBride has a rare gift as a writer: she combines high modernism, page-turning plot and melodrama into a narrative that will appeal to mainstream audiences and fans of literary avant garde.' (Irish Independent)

Narcissistic Navel gazing as an Art Form

The author is more interested in seeing how many ways they can turn over the same phrase than actually telling us a story. Lethargically read and painfully monotonous. I did not/could not finish.