Thursday, December 31, 2020

UNSEEN CITY


 Unseen City, Amy Shearn, Red Hen Press, 2020, 266 pp

This will be my last review for 2020. I had two more I wanted to post but life got in the way. Next up will be my Top Favorite Reads, my Books Read in December, etc.

The September, 2020 pick of the Nervous Breakdown Book Club was published by an Indie press from my very own city!

I loved Unseen City from the first sentence to the last. Meg Rhys, the main character, is a 40 year old woman who self-identifies as a spinster librarian. She likes men and sex but does not want a husband or to be a wife. All her heroes had resisted wifehood from Jane Austen to Emily Dickinson.

Meg lost her younger sister to a hit and run on the streets of New York but that sister visits her as a ghost in the evenings after work. Besides her cat and books, her passion is contained in the shelves of the Brooklyn Collection, on the second floor of the Brooklyn Central Library where she works; where she has amassed a wealth of understanding about Brooklyn from its 18th century farmlands to it gentrification in the 21st.

However, a man does finally penetrate her spinsterhood. Ellis turns up at the Brooklyn Collection needing a history of the ancient Brooklyn house his family hopes to renovate and sell. This house has a ghost also! Her name is Iris, her story lurks beneath Meg's story and like magic the author ties them together.

Everything I love about novels is encapsulated in Unseen City. The rhythms of the prose, the believability of every character, the layers of history, the accuracy of its present time scenes.

I feel like I will from now on be aware that my house, my property, my town within my city, has all those layers of history beneath it. I think a smart combination of agent, publisher, editor and marketer could have made this novel a bestseller, but that did not happen. So now it is up to readers who tell other readers: READ THIS!!

Thanks to Red Hen Press for putting the book into the world and to TNB for putting it in my hands.

18 comments:

  1. Oooooooh.... VERY interesting!

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    1. As you can probably tell, I was really wowed!

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  2. Sounds interesting. I had to look up the author ... it seems she's had two other books published (traditionally) .... I'm glad you told us about her & this novel ... sounds like a ghost story set in Brooklyn!

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    1. It is! On her Otherppl interview she gives her publishing history. I will most likely read those earlier books. She writes so well.

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  3. that's an interesting pov: regarding each life as a sort of multi-layered cake, with tasty bits interspersed with more sober planes and chocolate marshmellows in between... kind of makes it easier to swallow, lol...

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  4. Wow, sounds like a great book!! I will add Unseen City to my reading wishlist.

    Happy New Year, Judy!!

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    1. It really is a great one. Happy New Year to you, Lisa!

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  5. Wow, this book sounds amazing. I do like the premise quite a bit but also may not have picked it up without a little push. I'll look for this book.

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  6. This sounds excellent plus I love the cover too, thanks for sharing!

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  7. I always love stories that have main characters that love books just as much as I do. This book sounds absolutely wonderful!

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  8. This sounds delicious on so many levels, I requested it from my library and am first in line when the next copy comes back. I love her way of thinking - I also have never wanted to be someone's wife. I have always wanted to be a mother, but never a wife. Plus, I think the 'I love books too' goes without saying - even though I said it :)

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    1. I hope you find it as delicious as I did!

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  9. Replies
    1. I am so glad it came into my hands!

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