These nine brilliantly inventive stories capture the eccentricities 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," with the hero fading away toward infancy on the third floor. In apartment 7E, a lawyer named Zauberman reenacts the life of Hawthorne's Wakefield, abandoning his family so that he can spy on them. And 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 it all by thinking about the stories they know best.
About the Author :
Gabriel Brownstein's stories have appeared in Zoetrope: All Story, Northwest Review, the Literary Review, and the Hawaii Review. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Stefan Rudnicki is a Grammy-winning audiobook producer and a multiaward-winning narrator, named one of AudioFile's Golden Voices.
Stefan Rudnicki is a Grammy-winning audiobook producer and a multiaward-winning narrator, named one of AudioFile's Golden Voices.
Stefan Rudnicki is a Grammy-winning audiobook producer and a multiaward-winning narrator, named one of AudioFile's Golden Voices.
Scott Brick, an acclaimed voice artist, screenwriter, and actor, has performed on film, television, and radio. He attended UCLA and spent ten years in a traveling Shakespeare company. Passionate about the spoken word, he has narrated a wide variety of audiobooks. winning won more than fifty AudioFile Earphones Awards and several of the prestigious Audie Awards. He was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine and the Voice of Choice for 2016 by Booklist magazine.
John Rubinstein is an actor, composer, and director who won a Tony Award for his starring role in Broadway's Children of a Lesser God. He has narrated dozens of audiobooks, earning several AudioFile Earphones Awards and being named a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2013.
Arte Johnson is an award-winning narrator and an American comic actor who won an Emmy Award for his role in the television series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. His audiobook narations have won two AudioFile Earphones Awards, and he placed as a finalist for the Audie Award for best narration in 2003 and 2007.
Review :
"A breathing monument to childhood, to Manhattan, and in its good-natured way, to literature itself."
-- "Los Angeles Times"
"Mysterious, resonant, haunting; their echoes will stay with you long after you've finished his lovely, lovely book."
-- "Dale Peck, author of Now It's Time to Say Goodbye"
"Brownstein combines humor, absurdity, and elegy to create linked stories that are strong enough to stand on their own...Sympathetic and perceptive, unpretentious yet engaging, these stories are infused with a genuine sense of place; Brownstein's New York is a home for memories, a refuge for eccentrics. Highly recommended."
-- "Library Journal"
"Marvelously smooth hybrid tales that prompt readers to think twice about the intersection of life and fiction."
-- "Publishers Weekly"
"Scott Brick's performance is up to his usual high standards...The different actors work well together and strengthen the sometimes loose ties that bind the stories. The actors, especially old pro Scott Brick, bring the characters to life...[A] fascinating quilt of tales."
-- "AudioFile"
