What do you think?
Rate this book
Night in the World
“A splendid and searing novel, pressed up against the tremours of our times.”
– Catherine Bush, author of Blaze Island
“A wildly important book, brilliant, necessary.” – Deena Metzger, author of A Rain of Night Birds
A tender ensemble novel about coming home to oneself and one's family through the beauty and soulfulness of Earth, even in an age of unravelling.
Brothers Justin and Oliver have never been close. Justin owns an iconic Toronto restaurant and lives with his wife and daughter in Baby Point. Oliver, a former environmental reporter, does admin for a local gym and rents an attic apartment. Yet both men know their worlds stand on the brink. With their mother's abrupt death, each sets out to set things right: Oliver to reclaim a beloved home, Justin to save one that's falling apart.
Intersecting Justin's and Oliver's journeys is Gabe: a budding biologist enchanted by the underappreciated beauty of moths, and conflicted by the demands of scientific scrutiny. As the brothers' pursuits take them from Toronto Island to the Humber River, from drugs and transgressive art to meetings with imperiled activists, Gabe stakes everything on a glimpse of a new possibility.
Sharon English has penned a tender and powerful novel about the claims places make on our hearts, and how journeys into darkness are sometimes necessary to see through catastrophe. Night in the World explores the need to end our separations from each other and from nature—coming home, at last, to a beleaguered yet still beautiful world.
– Catherine Bush, author of Blaze Island
“A wildly important book, brilliant, necessary.” – Deena Metzger, author of A Rain of Night Birds
A tender ensemble novel about coming home to oneself and one's family through the beauty and soulfulness of Earth, even in an age of unravelling.
Brothers Justin and Oliver have never been close. Justin owns an iconic Toronto restaurant and lives with his wife and daughter in Baby Point. Oliver, a former environmental reporter, does admin for a local gym and rents an attic apartment. Yet both men know their worlds stand on the brink. With their mother's abrupt death, each sets out to set things right: Oliver to reclaim a beloved home, Justin to save one that's falling apart.
Intersecting Justin's and Oliver's journeys is Gabe: a budding biologist enchanted by the underappreciated beauty of moths, and conflicted by the demands of scientific scrutiny. As the brothers' pursuits take them from Toronto Island to the Humber River, from drugs and transgressive art to meetings with imperiled activists, Gabe stakes everything on a glimpse of a new possibility.
Sharon English has penned a tender and powerful novel about the claims places make on our hearts, and how journeys into darkness are sometimes necessary to see through catastrophe. Night in the World explores the need to end our separations from each other and from nature—coming home, at last, to a beleaguered yet still beautiful world.
385 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 1, 2022
3 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
About the author
Sharon English
3 books8 followersSharon English is the author of the short story collections Uncomfortably Numb and Zero Gravity, and the newly released novel Night in the World.
Zero Gravity was long-listed for the Giller Prize, short-listed for the ReLit Award, and a Globe and Mail Best 100 title. It was recently translated into Serbian.
Night in the World (May 2022) has been described as "a splendid and searing novel, pressed up against the tremours of our times."
Zero Gravity was long-listed for the Giller Prize, short-listed for the ReLit Award, and a Globe and Mail Best 100 title. It was recently translated into Serbian.
Night in the World (May 2022) has been described as "a splendid and searing novel, pressed up against the tremours of our times."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 28, 2022
Night in the World
Justin and Oliver are estranged brothers who are both nearing a breaking point in their lives; Gabe is a biologist in love with moths. With astonishing skill and insight, English immerses us completely in each of these characters’ psyches and their worlds: the world of night clubs and coke addiction, of anti-fracking activism, of academic research and perhaps most unforgettably, of moths. Shadowing all three lives is the fact of climate dissolution, and a relentlessly extractive and dissociated human world. As in Powers’ The Overstory, human and nonhuman life are densely entangled. Chapter titles alternate between “River” “Island” and “Lake” and water is what ultimately draws the three main characters together; the city of Toronto, where these bodies of water are located, is shown to be home to a vast urban wilderness. Night in the World is a novel about loss and endings but it also pulses with revelation: moonrise in a Toronto ravine, the nighttime miracle of moths,and bonds between humans that reassert themselves in unexpected, defiant, beautiful ways.
Justin and Oliver are estranged brothers who are both nearing a breaking point in their lives; Gabe is a biologist in love with moths. With astonishing skill and insight, English immerses us completely in each of these characters’ psyches and their worlds: the world of night clubs and coke addiction, of anti-fracking activism, of academic research and perhaps most unforgettably, of moths. Shadowing all three lives is the fact of climate dissolution, and a relentlessly extractive and dissociated human world. As in Powers’ The Overstory, human and nonhuman life are densely entangled. Chapter titles alternate between “River” “Island” and “Lake” and water is what ultimately draws the three main characters together; the city of Toronto, where these bodies of water are located, is shown to be home to a vast urban wilderness. Night in the World is a novel about loss and endings but it also pulses with revelation: moonrise in a Toronto ravine, the nighttime miracle of moths,and bonds between humans that reassert themselves in unexpected, defiant, beautiful ways.
March 3, 2024
Very good book. Interesting characters. Relatable and smart stories. Cli-fi that tackles clean water, fracking, extinction of species, eco journalism, scientific studies, and how far modern humanity is from being a healthy part of the earth's systems.
February 8, 2024
As one earlier reviewer asks: Why aren't more people reading this book? Night in the World is a beautifully written novel, with evocative settings, compelling characters and thought-provoking ideas. Themes of disintegration and breakdown are counter-balanced by the possibility of renewal, hope, and love. A couple of stand-out features: this novel is a rich portrait of Toronto, especially its secret natural spaces, as well as a nuanced exploration of early and later mid-life and its attendant crises. Much to enjoy on many levels.
January 16, 2024
A gorgeous treasure of a book. The plot was compelling, and each of the three characters held their own in terms of my interest in them and my curiosity about their predicaments and how they would handle them. The writing was transcendent. Sharon English captures wonder, love, grief, overwhelm, especially about the natural world and our human place in it. Highly recommend.
August 12, 2024
A luminous novel, beautifully written, that gently probes layers of our created and natural worlds and asks some important questions. I learned about a Toronto I didn’t know existed, too! I’m going to read this author’s short fiction collections and hope for another novel.
January 6, 2023
The premise of this book was certainly interesting, though I don't necessarily think it lived up to its full potential. To start off with what I didn't like:
-- the pacing. There isn't anything wrong with slow-paced books, but I generally prefer faster reads. If the book is slow, then I want the characters to be very compelling.
-- On that note, WOW I absolutely couldn't stand Justin! I know that's the point -- but wow, reading his parts felt laborious and just made me annoyed because wow is he such an unlikeable character. The absolute nonsense he puts his wife and child through ... also, for me anyway, I don't feel like he experienced that much character growth, or at least not enough.
What I did like though:
-- Olivier and Gabe. I'd say the interactions between Oliver and Gabe were my fave, and they were interesting characters (though still could have been developed more). I also liked learning about moths through Gabe's chapters.
All in all, not bad, but overall I felt like something was missing for me. I felt a little underwhelmed by the end (though, I did really enjoy how Gabe's narrative with her thesis came to a conclusion).
-- the pacing. There isn't anything wrong with slow-paced books, but I generally prefer faster reads. If the book is slow, then I want the characters to be very compelling.
-- On that note, WOW I absolutely couldn't stand Justin! I know that's the point -- but wow, reading his parts felt laborious and just made me annoyed because wow is he such an unlikeable character. The absolute nonsense he puts his wife and child through ... also, for me anyway, I don't feel like he experienced that much character growth, or at least not enough.
What I did like though:
-- Olivier and Gabe. I'd say the interactions between Oliver and Gabe were my fave, and they were interesting characters (though still could have been developed more). I also liked learning about moths through Gabe's chapters.
All in all, not bad, but overall I felt like something was missing for me. I felt a little underwhelmed by the end (though, I did really enjoy how Gabe's narrative with her thesis came to a conclusion).
April 25, 2024
So many intriguing ideas that went nowhere… I wanted to like this book so much but found myself being frustrated again and again by the lack of movement. Some parts of the novel felt like clippings of philosophical musings randomly thrown in to create importance to something that was already apparent.
My overall reaction is meh. The author certainly did her research, and I think the sources she cites in her acknowledgments will be much more interesting than this book.
My overall reaction is meh. The author certainly did her research, and I think the sources she cites in her acknowledgments will be much more interesting than this book.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews