Start spreading the news… today’s news is that there are an astonishingly large number of novels that are set in New York City. I have enjoyed more than a few recently. Here are some fiction titles that will sweep you away to the city that never sleeps.
Amy Poeppel’s contemporary family novel, The Sweet Spot, is set in Manhattan. It’s a fresh, funny, heartwarming novel that focuses on three women brought together by unexpected events that upend their lives. This story is about Lauren, a ceramist and mother of three who is trying desperately to keep all the balls in the air as her family moves into a retro townhouse in Greenwich Village. It’s about twenty-something Olivia, who is working a job she won’t admit she hates, being forced to take a step back and reevaluate all her life choices. It’s about Melinda, whose husband of thirty years left her for a younger, more glamorous woman, and whose career is derailed in the aftermath, causing her to reinvent herself more than once. All the threads converge in a story that’s both meaningful and heartwarming, with the spotlight on the family we find as well as the family we have.
If you enjoy novels that highlight family drama, you’ll enjoy The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney. It’s about the Plumb family, a group of four adult siblingswho have kept their eyes on the Nest, a fund put aside by their deceased father to be distributed when the youngest sibling turns forty years old. When their mother takes most of the money out to benefit the eldest son, Leo, the siblings turn on one another and demand that Leo reinstate the money. Melody, a married mother of two teen girls who insists on living in a community that is too expensive for her family, wants the money to finance an elite education for her daughters. Jack , a married antiques dealer who has secretly dipped into his and his husband’s assets to finance his foundering antiques business, wants the money to recoup his losses and keep his spending secret. Bea, a single career woman, has been struggling to produce a novel for decades. And Leo has secrets and struggles of his own. There are plenty of vividly-drawn minor characters who drive the plot forward. This is a story of how families depend on one another and disappoint each other.
Humor Me, by Cat Shook, is a novel about being single in the Big Apple. Set in 2017 and 2018, it is also a love song to New York and a finding yourself inhe big city narrative all rolled into one. Presley works as an assistant at a late night show that includes comedy segments, and she is looking to move up after two years in the role. Presley is originally from Georgia and is the only daughter of a single alcoholic mother. She has trouble acknowledging her feelings and opening up to others, the exception being her best friend and roommate Isabelle., who guides Presley’s social life and won’t let her box up her feelings. At the beginning of the book, Presley is navigating her career goals plus an awkward workplace crush. When she runs into her mother’s childhood best friend at an eatery in New York, this rekindling of a hometown relationship changes Presley’s emotional landscape in a myriad of ways. I particularly enjoy Presley’s passion for her work in comedy and her love for her adopted hometown, the one, the only, New York City.
If you, like me, can’t get enough of the city on the Hudson, here are some more:
They’re Going to Love You by Meg Howrey
Worry by Alexandra Tanner
Ms. Demeanor by Eleanor Lipman
The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz