In the City of Love's Sleep

This is a story about a woman and a man who meet by chance. Nothing of any importance is said, yet she suddenly turns away, leaves the room, and starts to run. She is in shock from what this man has brought back to life: an electrical affinity, a higher self, a feeling of having been woken, recognized, and desired.



Iris, a museum conservator in her late forties, is in the midst of separating from her husband, with whom she has two daughters. Her house is falling down, money is tight, and her husband is unwell. The man she meets is Raif, a stalled academic whose wife has died and whose girlfriend is about to move in. He is not as mysterious as he appears.



Iris and Raif have no say. For all we talk about love; name its parts; explain it to each other, it is something that just happens to us. We repeat steps laden with memory. In the City of Love's Sleep reveals love in all its inscrutable complexity: the raw nature of feeling and its uncontrollable, inconsistent, unsettling truths.



Lavinia Greenlaw has published five collections of poetry, most recently A Double Sorrow: Troilus and Criseyde. Her first novel, Mary George of Allnorthover, received France's Prix du Premier Roman Étranger. Her two books of nonfiction are The Importance of Music to Girls and Questions of Travel: William Morris in Iceland. Her writing has appeared in frieze, the London Review of Books and the New Yorker, among other publications.