Scene City

This irreverent debut novel from a startling new talent explores hedonism and heritage among the cold glitz of London’s commercial art world

Romy, an art history student, is committed to a headlong and accelerating pursuit of pleasure in the rarefied air of the capital’s art scene. Her sense of self fraying in this whirligig of decadence, she discovers in writing a way to keep her feet on the ground. Soon, Romy and her merry band of gays discover they are immersed in, of all unlikely things, the maelstrom of a developing novel.

Tapping into Laurence Sterne as much as it does Eve Babitz and Truman Capote, this infectious debut explores authorship and identity. It asks whether the pursuit of meaning can (or should) ever get in the way of a good time.

RÓISÍN TAPPONI is a writer and film programmer. She is the Founder of Shasha Movies, a streaming platform for artist film and video from South-West Asia and North Africa (SWANA). She featured in Forbes’s 30 Under 30 Europe for Entertainment in 2023. At twenty-five, Tapponi graduated with a PhD in the History of Art from the University of St Andrews. Her art writing has been published most recently in books by Phaidon, Gagosian, and Sadie Coles HQ. Scene City is Tapponi’s debut novel. She is based in London, where she moved as a child with her family.