宛如《竊聽風暴》遇上《雲端情人》，他竊聽他人的生活，卻逐漸丟失了自己的，一步步陷入荒唐的愛與墜落……

小說場景發生在八Ο年代初的倫敦，福克蘭群島戰爭爆發的前夕。主人翁唐納森是情報機構的竊聽員，他最初進入機構時曾滿心期待刺激的生活、浪漫的邂逅、新的身份地位，豈料分配到的盡是低階的任務。他鎮日竊聽冷戰時期的共產分子與無政府主義者，這些人在六Ο年代或許還有危險性，現在不過是時代的化石，電話內容多在抱怨久咳瘀痰，孫子難管這類芝麻瑣事，與他幻想的間諜人生截然不同。

直到有一天，唐納森追蹤到一條事關內部情報洩漏的重要線索：一位代號「鳳凰」的超級神秘人物，卻也因而聽到海倫教人迷醉的聲音。不知不覺間，鳳凰是否真的為他國效力，唐納森一點都不在意了，鳳凰的妻子海倫才是他竊聽的最大目標與動力。唐納森在虛妄的愛戀中越陷越深，被孤獨與熱情吞噬，隨著另一場戰爭就要一觸即發，唐納森一步步邁向墜落，人生從此無法回頭……

就主題而言，《長屋》（The Long Room）與電影《竊聽風暴》（The Lives of Others）、《雲端情人》（Her）似乎頗有呼應，描繪了一個男人嚴重偏離正軌的故事。然而儘管它的核心極為悲傷荒蕪，卻出乎意料地帶有喜劇色彩，作者在精準的節奏、飽滿的細節氛圍中，拋出各種關於身份認同、投射與選擇的問題，探索了受壓迫的心靈與想像力驚人的力量，表現了人類內心巨大的渴望，也寫盡了溫柔與辛酸。

 

弗朗西斯卡．凱伊（Francesca Kay）的第一部小說《An Equal Stillness》深受好評，獲得柑橘獎新進作家獎，入圍作家俱樂部小說首作獎以及英聯邦作家文學獎（歐洲和南亞地區）最佳新人作品獎。第二部小說《聖堂的獻祭》（The Translation of the Bones）再度入圍柑橘獎初選。現居牛津。

 

Kay's latest novel (her third) turns around the impossibility of ever honestly knowing another person, and she delights in subverting our expectations . . . Kay's portrait of Stephen as a hollow man is masterful: the slow accumulation of aberrant actions - barely detectable at first but building to a tidal wave that sweeps all before it - offers a brilliant depiction of how a person can go quietly, invisibly mad . . . The writing is spare and vivid, and Kay's dreary depiction of the early Eighties, with its Wimpy bars and stickily carpeted pubs, is superbly atmospheric. (Sarah Crown Daily Telegraph)

'[Kay] is fascinated by ambiguity, the party wall that cleaves private and public worlds. Her third novel shares the lyricism that distinguished her prize-winning debut, An Equal Stillness, and its successor, The Translation of the Bones, which explores a Marian miracle and the psychology of delusion...Where the novel most succeeds is in its representation of a solipsistic consciousness, searching for a communion beyond communication.' (Stevie Davies Guardian)

'Kay has an evocative was with period and social detail...the result is an unexpectedly compelling read that closes in, like a poetic bad dream, towards the all-too-foreseeable end.' (Phil Baker Sunday Times)

'Francesca Kay has done her period research ("he sought distractions - food, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on television") and this psychological thriller hinges on a clever idea: Stephen falls in love with a woman from her voice on the taped calls.' (Isabel Berwick Financial Times)

Perhaps it's the time period, possibly it's Kay's elegant classicism, but The Long Room seems like the sort of novel that might have won the Booker around 1981. It says much about the author's acute sensitivity to the minutiae of human behaviour that it wouldn't look out of place in 2016. (James Kidd Independent)