Cathleen Schine

What a tender-hearted book, with aging Joy Bergman heroically trying to maintain normal routines for her and her husband, Aaron, whose fraility and dementia is worsening. Daniel and his wife live in NY City, with their young daughters Ruby and Cora, and visit often. Molly, her grown daughter living across the US in California is increasingly worried about what to do about her folks, and flies back often. While the family faces issues like all do: Molly divorced, & Joy is "sorry Molly had show more given up a perfectly reasonable husband so she could be a lesbian in California" (5). Yet Joy ruefully admits to herself that plenty of her friends also had lesbian daughters and learns to not only accept Freddie, her "daughter-in-law" but appreciate her for her warmth and steadiness. The hardest part is how far away her daughter goes- "each time Molly left New York after a visit, Joy felt the air go out of the city"(5). Each of the Bergmans is presented with gentle detail, laugh out loud humor, and wise insight. Schine clips along at a cheerful pace, revealing the characters' thoughts and wishes through dialogue more than long expositions. This is a rare find - funny, emotionally satisfying, and reassuring: we all age, we all struggle with our most important relationships, but finding love, maintaining a home and family ties, good friends- these are worth the journey. show less

Another gem from Schine. Funny, poignant, brisk, no nonsense... Caution: sure to induce a squirm in anyone with aging parents, or who is considering becoming old. Normally I am not one for dysfunctional / neurotic-contemporary-New York-family dramas, but there is a lot of love among these f***ed-up people, and even if they would drive you crazy to be around, you care about what becomes of them.

Mamie Kunstler, a Jewish refuge from 1939 Vienna, travels to the safety of Santa Monica with her parents and grandfather. As a young refuge from a formerly well-off and artistic family, she meets many famous and talented artists of the 30s and 40s. Her grandson, Julian, a “woolgatherer”, according to his mother, finds himself suddenly girlfriendless and apartmentless in NY in 2019. When Mamie, at 93, breaks her wrist and needs some temporary assistance, Julian moves into her little house show more in Venice Beach. Soon, this short-term arrangement is forced to be longer when Covid strikes, and Mamie begins to tell Julian stories of her life and their family.

I loved Mamie and her relationship with Julian and the way she told him her stories of Los Angeles in the 1940s. There were a lot of historical tidbits and it reminded me, at times, of Anthony Marra’s “Mercury Pictures Presents” because of the location and the time period. Schine has a light touch, and except for a few pages where I thought Mamie went on too long (but maybe that was deliberate, in the way that stories of the past are sometimes told), I found the whole book delightful. I also spent a lot of time googling people and places and have a new old book on my Kindle, “Prince Jan, St. Bernard”.

I was sorry to have this book end, and hope Mamie, Agatha, Julian, and Sophie are still enjoying cocktails and tea in the garden under the stars.

Thank you to the publisher and LibraryThing for the ARC! show less

If you're not a dog person, this book probably won't hold much interest for you. (Also, what is wrong with you?) It follows about half a dozen residents of a nondescript block on the Upper West Side of Manhattan - human residents and canine ones. The dogs bring people together in unexpected ways and their interactions help forge a community of sorts. The dog characters are wonderful, especially Beatrice, a white pit bull with a big heart and a worrywart of an owner. The humans are show more wonderfully drawn, too. From the self-described spinster at 40 to the just-dumped 26 year old and her underachieving brother to the newly-divorced man trying to figure out how to be alone in his 50s, Schine treats each of her characters with affection and - often- bemusement. Doris, the "antagonist" of the story, is especially well-done in all her self-righteousness and hypocrisy.

The New Yorkers is a love letter to the city, as well as a paean to the special way dogs have of bringing us out of ourselves and to each other. show less