A novel about a volatile friendship between two outsiders who escape their bleak childhoods and enter the glamorous early '90s art world in New York City, where only one of them can make it.
Extraordinary ... Wambugu writes with an easy wit, her sentences as approachable as her deeply relatable narrator ... There is nothing groundbreaking or experimental about this novel’s conceit; it’s about as classic a coming-of-age as you’ll find. But as Ruth grows up and into an independent perspective whose outlines can finally be distinguished from those of the people she grew up with, it’s the specificity of this young woman’s mind, the contours with which she draws the characters and environments around her, that make Lonely Crowds exceptional.
Masterful, thoughtful ... Maria is a charismatic, complicated love object throughout the book. Wambugu ably chronicles her struggles. But it’s Ruth, through whose eyes we see everything, who shines in all her imperfections ... Emerges as one of the most emotionally and intellectually rich debuts I can remember reading in this or any year.
As the novel progresses, Ruth often stops existing on the page, overtaken by her endless loops of fixation on the thoughts and feelings of others. In part because the reader has no insight into Maria’s perspective, Ruth’s narrative voice makes it hard to discern what either woman gets from their friendship, or even the extent to which they know each other at all ... For Ruth, losing her friend would mean losing herself, too.
