Our London Lives examines what it’s like to look at one of literature’s most loved cities from the outside. The book pays homage to the quiet desperation of protagonist, Milly, delicately carving decades into a series of afternoons and evenings from 1979, to 2017, where her timeline converges with Pip, and an archaeology of his newly-sober regrets. These two Irish immigrants, a barmaid and a boxer, spend years together — and apart — and all the while, they must keep striving to get by.