Picture a novel about contemporary London and perhaps the kind of book that comes to mind is a plot-driven panorama along the lines of John Lanchester’s Capital. One suspects that nothing lay further from Keith Ridgway’s thoughts as he cooked up this shattered series of surreal and sinisterly comic south London scenes, peopled by a shadowy cast of characters who wander haphazardly in and out of view.The loosely linked episodes often turn on spying or sneaking around. A senile widow examines a dent in her wall only to end up inside it, watching next door’s kitchen through the gap. A builder’s assistant, left without his phone after being locked in a client’s house, decides his best bet is to hide out in the attic. In The Flat, a mysteriously indistinct narratorial “we” observes a new tenant masturbating after he stumbles upon a folder stuffed with explicit photos of his flat’s former residents.Shifting between a range of styles and perspectives, the minimally signposted narration, twinned with Ridgway’s delicious ear for dialogue, lends a voyeuristic quality to much of A Shock, as if we’re somehow present where we shouldn’t be. Real-world travails (money troubles, HR disputes) buttress the more bizarre goings-on, with…
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A Shock by Keith Ridgway review – life behind London's twitching curtains
