Sunset Park: A Novel by Paul Auster (A Frances Coady Book/Henry Holt and Company; $25.00; 320 pages)
It is the policy of Joseph’s Reviews to consider each work as to its own merit. This latest novel by famed Brooklyn, NY writer Paul Auster is the first of his works read by this reviewer which makes it easy to adhere to the policy. The book has served to pique my curiosity about Auster’s previous novels. I hope they, too, have the quietness and narrow focus that he grants each of his characters in Sunset Park.
There is aloneness, almost an alienation that Auster’s characters Miles, Bing, Alice and Ellen have in common. They are approaching midlife without the confidence and skills necessary to carry them into the next segment of their lives. Each has strongly felt needs that serve to nudge them into the world each day away from the city-owned house in a seedy part of Brooklyn where they have become squatters because all of them are painfully short on funds. These needs are coupled with real world time-sensitive matters that cannot be ignored.
Miles’ girlfriend in Florida, Pilar, is a ticking time bomb through no fault of her own (she’s underage). He is both drawn by and afraid of his need for her. Alice is closing in on the final chapters of her doctoral dissertation, Ellen knows that her job is in peril if she cannot stay focused and Bing fears his own proclivities.
The housemates are aware that any day Brooklyn city police will serve them with an eviction notice. Even though there is a sense of passing time and looming eventualities, the pace of the novel allows the reader to observe each character and appreciate how life has handed them challenges that will either serve as lessons or bring them disastrous outcomes. Of the four, only Miles has a safety net in the form of famous parents and step-parents. He has a painful secret that he has kept and danced around for over seven years. This secret has drawn him away from his parents and into hiding.
Auster tells just enough of a tale to capture the reader’s attention. He leaves out enough to allow the reader space to consider the reality that each of us has issues in life and they can be vastly different.
Highly recommended.
This review was written by Ruta Arellano. A review copy was provided by the publisher. Sunset Park will be released on Tuesday, November 9, 2010.
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