Novel set in the flickering neon light of New York City

26th February 2018

Neon in Daylight by Hermione Hoby, novel set in the flickering neon light of New York City 2012.

The opening to this novel packs a punch and is probably one of the best and sharpest openers to a book I have read.

Kate is British, studying in England but has reached a bit of an impasse in her life and in her relationship with boyfriend George. She has been given the opportunity to cat sit in an apartment in New York (where she is looking after the feline Joni Mitchell) and happily descends on the city to ponder her future. A chance encounter in a park with Inez heralds a new way of looking at life.

There is Bill Marrero, an older writer, whom Kate meets at a gallery showing pornographic portraits of body parts, graphic and close up. And that is the nub of the novel, everything is bigger, ruder, more intense and psychedelic in this city. Beware those who can’t keep up.

Inez, although wealthy in her own right, trots across the city without any footwear and earns extra income by acting out the sexual fetishes of male clients, whether dominatrix in high heeled couture shoes or finding herself locked in a cupboard for someone else’s odd and cheesy gratification.

Each chapter is devoted to one of the characters and as the novel unfolds it becomes clearer how the path of each character will cross and connect.

There are a lot of drugs floating around the book, from Kate swallowing a paper bomb (typically containing ecstasy pills or MDMA secured in a cigarette paper, if you want to know..) which takes her body several days to process, to Adderall and Advil (somehow British Anadin doesn’t have the same chutzpah) and Xanax (how often do I read American books where the characters knock back this mild tranquilliser?). This drugged up state helps make sense of the title, that neon (as observed by Bill) is a flickering and bright metaphor for the city that never sleeps. Everything is permanently wired and fragile and although this drug induced freneticism adds atmosphere and edginess, it also has the effect of disconnecting the reader. Imagine being the only sober person in a room when everyone else is under a chemical influence… you get the idea. A novel for narcotic times in New York.

The promising writing at the beginning reappears in flurries, the author is a very good writer, but becomes too reliant on the stock, florid “creative writing” style to maintain a buoyancy to the story.  For example, what to make of “..she’d duly walked the strip of an old elevated railway spur that had been willed into verdancy“?

Having said that, the novel really conjures up the sometimes venal feel of the city, set in the crushing heat of Summer 2012. Images drawn of the crazy side of the Big Apple are colourful and on point… from The Bowery, to Tompkins Square Park and beyond, to the weird and wonderful people parade through the pages of this book. I look forward to her next novel, as her first outing is promising.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

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