Nine Salingeresque stories about New Yorkers and their marvelous eccentricities.
This brilliantly inventive first collection captures the disparate lives of the residents of Manhattan's West 89th Street. Five stories are set in one apartment building, where young Davie Birnbaum watches his neighbors' lives unfold. The title story reworks F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," whose hero is born as an old man and ages in reverse; Brownstein's Button lives on the third floor, fading away toward infancy. In apartment 7E, a lawyer named Zauberman reenacts the life of Hawthorne's Wakefield: he abandons his family so that he can spy on them. Meanwhile, the proctologist in the penthouse plays Icarus and Daedalus with his misfit son. These are tales of literary voyeurism, as the narrators look in on other people's everyday victories and misfortunes—marriages, car accidents, love affairs, and adoptions—and make sense of what they see by thinking about the stories they know best. Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award; Finalist for the Book-of-the-Month Club First Fiction Award; Chosen as a 2002 Book to Remember by the New York Public Library.
Set mostly on the Upper West Side of New York City in the 1970s, Brownstein's 2002 debut collection ranges from the unusual to the bizarre, with nine linked accounts of Davie Birnbaum's friends and neighbors. The title story, reworked from F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1922 version, tells of Benjamin Button, a young man living his life backwards, being born old and then gradually growing younger. Despite this odd premise, the characters' motivations and actions seem perfectly believable. With echoes of Icarus, there is the tale of the frightening proctologist who straps wings on his son and pushes him off the roof. Davie relates in "Wakefield, 7E," the story of Mr. Wakefield, who fakes his own death, then moves across the street and spends his time spying on his wife and children. Perhaps the most poignant tale is that of Davie's friend and childhood ringleader Kevin McMichaelman, who turned mad at 17. Several years later and feeling guilty over not having been more supportive toward Kevin, Davie visits him, now a docent in the family home he has converted into a weird museum. The strange blend of humor, place, and memory in these works is powerful and entertaining. Scott Brick's reading makes even the most eccentric character credible. Recommended for large public libraries. [Fitzgerald's story was rereleased in paper in 2007, and Brad Pitt and other biggies are slated for the film version, due out later this year. Also available as downloadable audio.-Ed.]
—Nancy R. Ives
| Musee Des Beaux Arts | 15 | |
| Bachelor Party | 20 | |
| The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 3W | 45 | |
| Safety | 101 | |
| Wakefield, 7E | 120 | |
| The Inventory of Love | 134 | |
| A Penal Colony All His Own, 11E | 156 | |
| The Speedboat | 175 | |
| The Dead Fiddler, 5E | 198 |
Overview
Nine Salingeresque stories about New Yorkers and their marvelous eccentricities.
This brilliantly inventive first collection captures the disparate lives of the residents of Manhattan's West 89th Street. Five stories are set in one apartment building, where young Davie Birnbaum watches his neighbors' lives unfold. The title story reworks F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," whose hero is born as an old man and ages in reverse; Brownstein's Button lives on...