Lonely Crowds
Stephanie Wambugu
Available as Paperback, eBook, Downloadable audio
27 August 2026
Luster meets The Idiot in this intimate, piercing debut centring on the glamourous 90s NYC art scene and a friendship teetering on the obsessive
Ruth’s life changes the day she stands in line with her mother to buy a new school uniform – and sees another girl and her aunt turned away, unable to afford one. The girl, Maria, meets Ruth’s stare without shame, and from that moment, Ruth can’t stop thinking about her.
When school begins, and they turn out to be the only two girls attending on scholarship, Ruth musters the courage to introduce herself. A friendship forms – not by choice, but by something stronger. Ruth is drawn into Maria’s orbit, always circling: never too close, never quite able to pull away.
As they grow up like sisters, attend the same college, and eventually move to 1990s New York to chase dreams in the art world, the bond between them begins to buckle under the weight of ambition and rivalry. Their lives continue to converge and diverge – until they meet in one final and momentous confrontation.
“A vibrant Künstlerroman, sexy and sharply observed”
Raven Leilani, Author Of Luster
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“Every year, I read dozens of good debut novels – I have never until Lonely Crowds read one so entirely, assuredly itself. Wambugu has that rare confluence of austere excellence to be admired, and vivid, sensuous warmth to be moved and devastated by”
Megan Nolan
“The best novel about friendship I have read for years, the writing precise, the feelings volcanic. The ecstasies of friendship and its mayhem are laid bare”
Susie Boyt
“From the first page, Stephanie Wambugu illuminates the tumult of female friendship so vividly and with such wise insight that you can’t put this novel down. Lonely Crowds is a bravura debut, from a stunningly gifted writer”
Claire Messud
“Extraordinary … Wambugu writes with an easy wit, her sentences as approachable as her deeply relatable narrator … as Ruth grows up and into an independent perspective whose outlines can finally be distinguished from those of the people she grew up with, it’s the specificity of this young woman’s mind, the contours with which she draws the characters and environments around her, that make Lonely Crowds exceptional … Wambugu shows that the state of devotion can be more about the giver than the receiver”
new York Times Book Review
Stephanie Wambugu
Stephanie Wambugu was born in Mombasa, Kenya in 1998, grew up in New England and lives in New York City. She studied writing at Bard College and Columbia University. Her writing has appeared in Granta, Frieze, Bookforum, The Nation, The Drift and elsewhere. Lonely Crowds is her first novel.
@stephanienjeriwambugu | stephanienjeriwambugu.com