A New York State of Mind

Painting by Vishalandra Dakur

One of my favourite cities is New York. In my younger years, I went there several times over a short period so that after awhile, I learned my way around. The flight from Toronto was less than two hours and was cheap enough that I could justify going for the weekend. (I went often enough that I even had a Saks Fifth Avenue charge card!) In hindsight, my brief forays into the heart of this steaming beast were superficial at best. But many great memories were created and I’ve never lost my fascination with this wonderful city.
 
So, for no particular reason, the Big Apple is the focus of today’s writing. Here are two story collections, a witty psychological suspense, and corruption on Park Avenue, a novel examining memory and money, and a powerful exploration of how life can change in an instant.
 
Table for Two by Amor Towles
Here are six short stories set in New York City and a novella that picks up the character Evelyn Ross from The Rules of Civility, who will also feature in Towles’s next novel. He has said that the most important thing in fiction is to “make the reader feel like they are living the experience of the book.” His work does just that. Characters feel like friends, no matter how different their backgrounds. The title indicates the frequent state of the stories, whether through intimate conversations or explorations of marriage. And don’t miss the adaption of A Gentleman in Moscow now streaming on Paramount+.
 
Atta Boy by Cally Fiedorek
This emerging writer makes her debut with a trenchant novel about contemporary NY society. Rudy is introduced to a very different world from the one he grew up in when he is ousted from the family bar business and becomes. Park Avenue night doorman in a legendary apartment building. We follow his transformation from ‘boy from Queens’ to becoming enmeshed with the family of millionaire Jake Cohen whose taxi business is in trouble. Fiedorek’s smart take on white-collar crime and the collision of classes is nothing less than a perfect social commentary on the disparities of wealth.
 
Trust by Herman Diaz
This utterly original novel examines the human cost of wealth, how we shape our narrative, and how money manipulates it. Four different perspectives tell the story of an extremely rich NY financier and his cultured wife. First is an account by a forgotten novelist that casts them in an unflattering light. Second is an account shaped by the husband, attempting to correct this version; third, is one by a young writer the husband hired to write his version; and last, is the journal of the wife in her last days. It isn’t until you come to this last narrative, that everything that has gone before is understood. Trust is both a moral quality and a financial arrangement, as though both virtue and money were synonymous.
 
Everything Turns Away by Michelle Berry
On September 11, 2001, the world changed. On the evening before that fateful event, two young couples have a dinner party, a babysitter goes missing, and a man is murdered at a neighbour’s house. All their lives are about to unravel, and then the World Trade Centre is destroyed by terrorists. The gripping novel is a haunting exploration of marriages and what tears them apart, of what happens to people during shocking events, and of how everything can change in an instant. It can happen anywhere, anytime, when everyone was turned away.

Seize the joy, my friends.
And in the meantime, happy reading!