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The Night Watch

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The Night Watch

By: Sarah Waters
Narrated by: Juanita McMahon
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About this listen

Shortlisted for the British Book Awards, Book of the Year, 2007.
Shortlisted for Audible's Listen of the Year, 2006.
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, 2006.
Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, 2006.

Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked out streets, illicit liaisons, sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941, The Night Watch is the work of a truly brilliant and compelling storyteller. This is the story of four Londoners, three women and a young man with a past, drawn with absolute truth and intimacy.

Kay, who drove an ambulance during the war and lived life at full throttle, now dresses in mannish clothes and wanders the streets with a restless hunger, searching; Helen, clever, sweet, much-loved, harbours a painful secret; Viv, glamour girl, is stubbornly, even foolishly loyal, to her soldier lover; Duncan, an apparent innocent, has had his own demons to fight during the war. Their lives, and their secrets connect in sometimes startling ways. War leads to strange alliances.

Tender, tragic, and beautifully poignant, set against the backdrop of feats of heroism both epic and ordinary, here is a novel of relationships that offers up subtle surprises and twists. The Night Watch is thrilling. A towering achievement.

©2006 Sarah Waters (P)2006 Time Warner AudioBooks 20th Century Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Romance War Tear-jerking

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The Pride List of Queer Storytelling

To mark Pride 2023 Audible teamed up with non-profit organisation, Out on the Page, supporter and champion of LGBTQIA+ writers and writing, to release an extensive Pride List of Queer Storytelling. Featuring contributions from some of the UK’s most important and exciting voices from the LGBTQIA+ community, this audiobook is one of the many featured on the list that is available to listen to on Audible.
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Critic reviews

"A truthful, lovely book that needs no conjuring tricks to make you want to read it again." (Observer)

"Brilliantly done....A tour-de-force of hints, clues, and dropped threads." (Independent on Sunday)
All stars
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The stories chug along eventually gaining momentum. At times rather too wordy and I would have liked rather less of Viv’s brother and his friend - the factory and the prison scenes were a tad tedious.

This was the first book where I can recall women’s periods being dealt with and in simple plain terms - hardly a major factor in the book but important for most women and deserving of being featured.

Glad I listened to it

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I didn't know what to expect with this book but it turned out to be pretty average. More the story line than the voices / acting. I have since seen a tv version and felt the same - it just didn't really grab me.

Pretty average

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I very much enjoyed this book. It's definitely better than some of her other books, and I thought was very well written. The narration is also very good. Set during the London blitz, it follows the lives of several females through this period, whose lives are separate, and yet intertwined. I'd highly recommend it.

Excellent

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I managed to get through purely because it was so well narrated. I was constantly waiting for the storey to get going or for something exciting to happen and it never did. However, I still enjoyed listening and particularly enjoyed the parts set in London during the blitz.

Excellently narrated

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If you have not read anything by SW before, I can recommend this as a starting point. She really is a first class storyteller. The novel is inhabited by fully rounded characters and is wonderfully atmospheric.

Very unusual and thoroughly enjoyable

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This book wouldn't have been half such a good listen if it hadn't been for the excellent reader Juanita McMahon. She brings all the characters alive. And has a different voice for them all.
The story line is interesting from the point of view of life in London during WWII and especially the ambulance service. Also the difficulties of being gay in that era. It was just not acceptable.

Beautifully read

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This is a dauntingly long recording, and at first I wondered whether I would last the course, but I persevered and was ultimately rewarded. The cast of characters covers a range of social class and gender types, and, although the war is the background, it is also a major influence on all of them. The novel begins in the early post war, and much of the novel is a linked series of episodes taking place during the war, which puts into place the behaviours, concerns, quirks and relationships of the characters in their post war guise. The ordinariness of most of the characters set against a background of extraordinary events is an effective way of situating daily life in London during the air raids, and it effectively conveyed the way in which life and relationships had to be carried on in the face of disruption and danger. It also shows how conventions were challenged and social divisions were being undermined. This is not a book, however, for the reader wanting quick gratification, as it requires some commitment from the reader/listener. Juanita McMahon's reading is outstanding.

The Night Watch

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I really felt each characters emotions, especially Kay. I love the 1940s and this book takes you back in time. Will definitely read another of Sarah books.

First book of Sarah Waters

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It took me a few starts to get into this book. For some reason I found the characters hard to connect with and the depression of the post-war setting put me off. Once I got past that, though, I actually found the minutiae of detail about people's every-day lives during that time in our history quite fascinating.


I had read Fingersmith, but somehow didn't connect either that book or the author with the lesbian/gay genre. The Nightwatch is more clearly of that genre. There is a scene, in a park, where one of the characters is uncomfortable about holding hands with her lover in public. It made me wonder about how little our attitudes have changed in many ways - there are still people I know who would not dare to be open about their relationships. So the book is quite thought-provoking in that respect - makes you think of things from a different perspective. I really enjoy books that can enlarge my understanding of a subject or a time-period but still retain the narrative, and The Night Watch certainly does that.


The structure of the book is that it starts in the post-war years, introducing the characters, and then progresses backward to reveal the history of each plot-line. It's an interesting approach, but I found it quite disatisfying in the end. I wanted more closure, especially for those characters that I'd grown attached to.

Interesting, enjoyable, strangely dissatsifying

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Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No. I found it slow paced and dreary. Excessive minute detail became numbingly boring and my attention wandered again and again. A shame really, as I enjoyed the TV adaptation.

Would you ever listen to anything by Sarah Waters again?

Quite probably. I've liked the TV adaptations I've seen so I'll give SW another go at some point.

What about Juanita McMahon’s performance did you like?

It was fine, clear and well paced.

If this book were a film would you go see it?

Not if I'd read the book first!

Worked much better adapted for the screen

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