Nightshift

A friendship grows into a life-altering obsession in Ladner’s alluring debut set in late 1990s London. Meggie Groenewald meets Sabine Dubreil at her media-monitoring job when they’re both 23, and she detects a push-pull dynamic between them from the start. At the same time, Meggie is pursuing a literature degree and has a boyfriend, yet a small part of her yearns for another kind of life, or even to be another person. So when Sabine transfers to the night shift at a grubby warehouse near London Bridge, Meggie follows. There, Sabine kisses Meggie, setting in motion a shift in Meggie’s world. Meggie begins hanging out at pubs with the night crew and Sabine, who calls her “my cute friend who I kiss” but lets her get no closer. It prompts Meggie to test her sexuality with another woman, though she returns to and plans to move in with her boyfriend. But on the day of the move, Meggie goes on a coke binge with the crew. Though some late revelations are unexpectedly disturbing given the lighter tone that precedes them, Ladner sustains a deliriously lurid rabbit hole for Meggie to go down as she fixates on her unreliable “fairy tale friend” who she longs not only to know but also to be. The result is a tense and affecting tale of awakening. (Feb.)