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Tuesday Nights in 1980
Tuesday Nights in 1980
Jan 14, 2026 4:01 AM

Author:Molly Prentiss

Tuesday Nights in 1980

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2016 CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE

One town. Three people. A single year that will change them all forever. Welcome to the seductive chaos of downtown New York

Raul is an Argentinian painter, fresh on New York's downtown scene, about to explode into fame. James is the city's most notorious critic, known for his unique synaesthesia, his mind ablaze with fireworks and symphonies. And Lucy is just another young girl who escaped suburbia, all too easily dazzled by the brilliant strangers who cross her path.

Exploding with colour and raw energy, this electrifying debut captures the spirit of a New York now long gone, a place of creation and destruction and endless possibility.

Reviews

Publisher's description. Three lives collide in 1980s downtown New York: Argentinian painter Raul, infamous art critic James, and daisy-fresh young wanderer Lucy, a muse looking for her artist. This is a love letter to New York and the people who embodied the city's vital, messy, living spirit.

—— Penguin

A work of artistry... Inventive, shocking, authentic, frenetic, fresh. I held my breath the whole way.

—— New York Times

A love letter to a vanished New York

—— Vogue

Vivid and sensitive, [with] exuberance and heart

—— Vulture

Intoxicating and raw... [it] pulses with creative energy

—— People Magazine

Tuesday Nights In 1980 shakes with life and colour... Original and full of life.

—— Emerald Street

A beautifully written story of creation and transformation, set against a backdrop of urban decay and political violence. I loved this book

—— Daniel Alarcón, author of 'Lost City Radio'

Prentiss has imagination and humour... Spirited and delightful

—— Guardian

Soulful, ambitious and deeply felt.. A first work of fiction to marvel at and then savor. This is a serious young writer in full command of her craft

—— Tom Barbash, author of 'Stay Up With Me'

This fun, super-readable breath of fresh air had us completely hooked

—— Fabulous magazine, Sun on Sunday

Kinsella at her put-a-smile-on-your-face best

—— Good Housekeeping

A warm-hearted comedy about appreciating what really matters in life

—— Sunday Mirror

I'm a huge fan of Kinsella . . . This is a highly enjoyable romp

—— Sara Lawrence, Daily Mail

A captivating story, full of heart.

—— Good Housekeeping

a powerful book and a cautionary tale... it's also a touching celebration of human determination in the overcoming of adversity.

—— Press Association

Darkly funny debut

—— Radio Times

Funny and warm, heartbreaking too. Impressive debut!

—— Claire Allan

emotional, raw, deeply moving and…funny too

—— The Scotsman

...a really rather good YA crossover ... while Khorsandi's novel tackles some pretty big subjects, it does so while making you laugh out loud

—— Metro

I really couldn’t put this book down. It’s not just for young people but if you have a teenage daughter, please make her read it.

—— The Sun

I am loving Shappi Khorsandi's Nina is Not OK, she is making me care about 'Nina' so much that I get anxious on her behalf

—— Jenny Eclair

Thematically taut and compulsively paced.

—— Edmund Gordon , Sunday Times

A very good novel of anxiety, embarrassment and also, somehow, the depths of Englishness.

—— Evening Standard

Marvellous, original and intelligent. Kunzru writes like a master storyteller... There's simply nothing [he] couldn't manage in prose

—— Literary Review

Publisher's description. Electrifying, subversive and wildly original, White Tears is a ghost story and a love story, a story about lost innocence and historical guilt. This unmissable novel penetrates the heart of a nation's darkness, encountering a suppressed history of greed, envy, revenge and exploitation, and holding a mirror up to the true nature of America today.

—— Penguin

Compulsively readable, masterly - a tour de force

—— Rachel Kushner

Riveting from the very first page, I was completely addicted... A literary thriller and a timely, unsparing excavation of the very real spectre of race in America's past and present. White Tears is proof that Kunzru is one of the finest novelists of his generation...

—— Mirza Waheed

Hari Kunzru is an incredibly versatile writer who is alert to the inequalities in the world... Powerful and complex, White Tears is a novel about abuses of wealth and power. Brilliantly orchestrated, unforgettable and devastating

—— Bernardine Evaristo

Hari Kunzru is one of our most important novelists

—— Independent on Sunday

Kunzru's engagingly wired prose and agile plotting sweep all before them

—— New Yorker

Elizabeth Strout's My Name is Lucy Barton shouldn't work, but its frail texture was a triumph of tenderness, and sent me back to her excellent Olive Kitteridge

—— Cressida Connolly , The Spectator

A rich account of a relationship between mother and daughter, the frailty of memory and the power of healing

—— Mark Damazer , New Statesman

This physically slight book packs an unexpected emotional punch

—— Simon Heffer , Daily Telegraph

A novel offering more hope

—— Daisy Goodwin , Daily Mail

My Name Is Lucy Barton intrigues and pierces with its evocative, skin-peeling back remembrances of growing up dirt-poor.

—— Ann Treneman , The Times

Masterly

—— Anna Murphy
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