Dan Kois

Surprisingly lacking in Big Revelations (or how-to tips, for that matter), it kind of sounds like Kois is a little ambivalent about whether it was all worth the trouble at by the end. Mostly what carries this along is his charming writing and funny stories.

That said, I do find myself inspired to want to try to do something like this. Seems a lot easier and maybe more impactful to settle somewhere for a whole year. Certainly, post-pandemic, when remote work seems like it's going to be a viable option for a lot more people… (plus d'informations)

Nice title, I thought when I spotted this, and nice cover. Ha, fittingly then, the novel itself has to do with books: titles and covers also feature satisfyingly. When we begin, Emily is 22 and new to New York city by way of Wisconsin. She's a temp, scraping by and living in a ratty apartment with her gay friend Louis. Then she meets another girl whom she knows vaguely: another Emily, and this new Emily sweeps our girl off her feet, so to speak, and renames her Em.

Thus begins the friendship that is the narrative spine. Weaving in and out of all this is Em's dream job as assistant to editorial agent named Edith. Emily has various temp jobs in support of her ultimate aim of being a director whose plays are site-specific: highly conceptual and performed in places like the Brooklyn Bridge and an abandoned hospital. Emily lives in a building called Sunrise Squat, so named because the residents have taken over this abandoned structure, reworked it themselves, and now manage it as a cooperative despite getting in frequent snarls with the law.

Em slowly progresses in her job, managing the work of an author named Lucy Deming. The involvement of a book-cover designer here was so so NICE! (The title is taken from a real-life series published by Vintage.) I've slowly become interested in this subject, and been dying to read a book set in this world. I almost wish Em herself was a designer, but her work and the way she becomes a crack editor was exceptionally satisfying.

Stucturally the novel has four sections by year: 1991, 2005, 1993, and 2007 in that order. We come to know that while Emily is magnetic, opinionated and passionate, and she and Em are soulmates when it comes to creative energy, there are problems in paradise. Our Em knows she's somewhat of a second-fiddle to the dazzle of her friend. When she finally stands up for herself, the friendship itself cracks. Boys feature but aren't investigated thoroughly; they, like siblings and parents, are adjunct characters to the novelist Lucy and the publishing world itself, and this I liked a lot.

The story covers a major chunk of their adulthood in NY, and the city as usual is its larger-than-life self. There were a few sections that did drag a little, like all the pop-culture references and those bits about the baby but that just may be me. Also making an appearance are real-life publishing houses and apparently the book designer character is a real person who designed the real-life Vintage Contemporaries series. Cool, no?

Dan Kois, you sly fox, where did you come from? Why is there not more hype about your own very fine novel? It's a mystery. Not surprisingly the author is a very booky type who also collaborated long ago on a blog discussing book covers, and of course I went there and rooted around it to my heart's content. I hope this (quite inadequate) review encourages others to pick this up. It's warm, intimate, not too clever, slightly sweet, immersive. Enjoy. I might even purchase it (I borrowed this time) just for that simple, evocative cover.… (plus d'informations)