Guilherme Oliveira Oliveira থেকে Rusavkino-Romanovo, Moskovskaya oblast', Rusia, 143985
This post-9/11 novel introduced me to an extraordinary artist with a wondrous sense of place. Anyone (like me)who loves New York City based stories should enjoy the latest descriptions of Manhattan based on the peregrinations of a psychiatric resident who finds solace in walking the city after his difficult hospital rotations. The whole story is told at a psychological arms length, the prose at once detached, haunting, fluid, engaging. Although the protagonist is African of mixed heritage, he is a fitting inhabitant of a city built on the bones of immigrants. He allows us free access to his thoughts, moods, emotions, physical state. I thought I began to know him...until the end of the book. There, in a few short pages, this supremely talented author shocks with violent force challenging our view of the protagonist, our opinion of his story. What was real? What was not? Note of caution: Although I recommend this book, read it with a dictionary nearby. This is a supremely intellectually challenging book, not only in its vocabulary, but in its assumption of the cultural level of the reader. Added on in Nov. 2011: I convinced a dear friend to read this book with me this past summer. We took one chapter a week and just finished it. This time we both worked on annotating all the references to people, books, music, architecture,etc. throughout the book. It was a lot of work, but worth it. What an education we received from this author! My re-reading of this book only intensified my appreciation of this novel and its author, a true artist.