The Long Room

By: Francesca Kay

Narrated by: Michael Healy

London. December 1981. The IRA is on the attack, a cold war is being waged, another war is just over the horizon, and Stephen Donaldson spends his days listening. When he first joined the Institute, he expected to encounter glamorous, high-risk espionage. Instead he gets the tape-recorded conversations of ancient Communists and ineffectual revolutionaries - until the day he is assigned a new case: the ultra-secret PHOENIX, a suspected internal leak.

The monotony of Stephen's routine is broken, but it's not PHOENIX who captures his imagination. It's the target's wife, Helen. Beset by isolation and loneliness, Stephen becomes dangerously obsessed with Helen, risking his job to keep his fragile connection to her and inadvertently setting himself up for a fall that will forever change his life.

With compassion and tenderness and moments of unexpected humor, Francesca Kay charts the way in which imagination, projection, and desire overwhelm the paucity of Stephen's life and identity. As beautiful as it is intense, The Long Room explores a mind under pressure and the wilder cravings of the heart.

©2016 Francesca Kay (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Disappointed

I’d expected to enjoy this, but after two hours couldn’t wait to finish. I can’t help thinking a different narrator would’ve brought the Long Room to life; alas, the voice chosen for this novel is better suited for fairy-tales, as that is what it seemed I was listening to.
I’d read in a review that Stephen’s character is unbelievable, being that he is very sensitive, but I disagree; some of the most beautiful sonnets written by men. Stephen, though he has many endearing inner qualities, is sorely lacking as a romantic interest; the sort of man who creeps around, but never makes a move. I wanted to like him, but couldn’t. I could not like anyone in this book, though I tried. I have nothing against the quiet novel about ordinary people, but this is like a plain bowl of oatmeal and nothing in the cupboard to flavor it.
I paid meticulous attention throughout, but lost track during the last few chapters and now have no idea what exactly happened, nor do I care to go back and find out.
If I were the novelist, would be furious that something I’d made an effort at is reduced by the voice; such beautiful writing deserves a narrator with more panache; near painful to listen to.

Dull Spy Novel?

I just could not get into this glacially slow novel. The main character is dull and can't intact normally with people so he develops a fantasy about one of the women he has been spying on. Just didn't care.

Slow but okay until the end…

It builds slow but i stuck with it as characters and story developed very carefully, meticulously Lot’s of inner reflections of characters inner thinking. The end was coming and i was wondering how is the author going to end this story. And all the sudden like a hidden trap door the whole thing gets yanked away in a few pages. Left hanging. Not worth it.

Unfocused and Unfulfilling

This novel progressed very slowly only to grind to an unsatisfying end.

While the author is talented at describing things both real and imagined in the lead character's world, much of the detail did nothing to move the plot along. Along that line, several characters/bystanders were developed to no effective end. Presumably, everything in the story was there as background to explain or illustrate the protagonist's (Steven) mental inner workings.

Finally, cold war espionage is irrelevant to the journey Steven takes in and out of fantasy. He could have just as well been a postman or auto mechanic. If you are looking for spy thriller suspense or tension, you find very little of it in The Long Room.
The novel could have been greatly improved, in my opinion, if Steven's various fears, frustrations and self-inflicted plight could have been worked into a story more relevant to the spy genre and which took place equally within his mind as in the real world.

I've Started This Over Five Times Now

And still cannot stay focused on this spectacularly unsuited for audio novel. The narrator's voice is that of a supercilious old man that grates like coarse sandpaper. Sorry, i am returning this one.

Beautifully written!

Francesca Kay is an exquisite writer, her descriptions are stunning and her characterizations deeply complex. A wonderful book.