By Tice Cin
Publishes 10/9/26
The new novel from the author of Keeping the House, a Burley Fisher Book of the Year.
Our unnamed narrator survives in London and Newark on a combination of Universal Credit, music production and songwriting, trying to figure out what she wants from home, and whether anyone is prepared to give it to her.
Navigating love affairs and halted by pain following the loss of her closest confidante, Safe Spaces is a portrait of the artist as a young musician. Of the DJ booths and dances that shape her, and the worlds she finds herself in: be they local raves, her Turkish-Cypriot family, the beauty parlour or the studio.
At once a songbook, a found poem of place, a therapy transcript and a community journal, Safe Spaces is a work of extraordinary lyricism and candour, confirming Tice Cin as one of the foremost stylists of her generation. A deeply intimate portrait of a community and a moving personal reckoning, it fearlessly asks: can the dream of a safe space ever be realised?
'Safe Spaces makes a universe of London in all its glory, cruelty, poetry and bureaucracy. This is a book that evokes the shattering effect of trauma on prose, then painstakingly reconstructs a way to experience life, and talk about love. I saw in it a feat of outstanding energy to keep looking, keep listening and, feel everything in a time of grief, and yet somehow overstate nothing.'
Amber Hussain