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Surveillance by Jonathan Raban
Surveillance is set a few years in the future where the surveillance and security measures are the central facet of American life. Lucy Bengstrom is a journalist who takes an assignment to do an article about a reclusive writer, August Vanags, with a popular Holocaust memoir. Vanags is a neoconservative with a cheerful disposition who is glad the government goes to extremes to protect the public. Lucy tries to stay the objective journalist who sees both sides of the issue in the war on terror. Tad Zachary lives across the hall from her. He's an HIV-positive man who lost a partner to AIDS. He's concerned about the level of surveillance in everyday life, how quickly everyone is to spy on others' lives. Lucy gets uneasy about the level of snooping she's doing into Vanags' life, and the information she might be uncovering. Jonathan Raban's novel has received positive reviews with the New Statesman saying, "Having devoted his career mainly to non- fiction, Raban is becoming one of our most insightful novelists. Surveillance is a work that confirms him as one of the most original commentators on the times in which we live."
