The Secret of Lost Things

After losing her mother on her 18th birthday, Rosemary Savage arrives in 1970s New York with nothing more than $300 and a burning need to find something to fill the void. She winds up at the Arcade, a spralling used bookstore characterized by piles of books, acquisitive customers, and eccentric employees. As Rosemary tries to adjust to life away from her native Tasmania, she finds herself drawn into an intrigue surrounding a lost novel by Herman Melville.

The mystery element of this story was the weakest part in my opinion- the storyline was neither compelling nor convincing, and too many unanswered questions remained unanswered at the end of the book. Regardless, the beautiful prose was enough to carry this weak story from start to show more finish. The portraits of the characters were deftly drawn, and I truly felt the pain of Rosemary's extreme naiveté and her awkward relationships with Oscar and Mr. Geist. The writing is lyrical and dense, a festival for the eyes and brain that called to mind another novel of literary discovery- [book: The Thirteenth Tale]. Though I wish the details of the mystery had been more fully fleshed, I highly recommend this book for the power of the writing alone. show less

One small quibble... One doesn't write "Tasmania" on the customs form. One writes, TAS and the postal code and then AUSTRALIA. Despite Tasmania's cultural independence, they are still part of Australia. Just as when mailing things Hawaii gets reduced to HI.

The review:

Sometimes a book will just click with a reader. Everything (or almost everything) will fall into place and just be a shared experience between the author, the fictional characters and the reader. The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay was one of those books for me.

Rosemary born on Anzac Day and therefore named for the herb often worn on lapels in Australia. Until her eighteenth birthday her home is her mother's hat shop in Tasmania. When her mother dies she is sent by a show more bookseller friend to New York with her mother's ashes in a box of Huon pine, one of the most pungent pine scents I have ever smelled; it seems to permeate the entire island.

In that first chapter I was drawn back to my own experience as an exchange student in Tasmania at the age of 17. I can picture the very first place I visited on my own, a used book shop in Ulverstone to buy Nova by Samuel R. Delany for $5.20. I was just as naive and confused by Tasmanian culture (which is a blend of mainland Australian and British ex-pat cultures) as Rosemary is in New York. I can remember being overwhelmed by homesickness at the aroma of the Huon pines (which aren't really pines but smell enough like them to confuse a jet-lagged nose) growing at the Don college.

Then there is Rosemary's time in New York where she works at a place called The Arcade (and apparently inspired by the author's time working at the Strand). Although I haven't worked in a bookstore (would love to someday) I have worked in a university library and in my father's antique shop both which attract people similar to the characters in The Secret of Lost Things.

The final point where I clicked with Rosemary was with her involvement in the search for Melville's lost novel, Isle of the Cross (1853). While I'm no Melville scholar, I am a bit of a fan of his and Hawthorne's books and was vaguely aware of their odd friendship.

Had all those different pieces in my life not been in place I probably would have been more troubled by the novel's flaws. The wacky characters are sometimes too two-dimensional, Rosemary stays naive too long, her obsession with Oscar is just as creepy as Geist's obsession with her is. Yes, those flaws are there but the connection I felt with the book was so strong I don't care about any of them. show less

Rosemary has lived all of her eighteen years in a small town in Tasmania. When her mother dies, a family friend sends her off to New York armed with three hundred dollars and her mother's ashes in a small pine box. Rosemary finds a job in an enormous used and rare bookstore where the employees are about as colorful as you could hope to find in the NYC of 1980. Rosemary learns to negotiate relationships, although the man she decides to fall in love with is about as unsuitable as possible.

There is a mystery, too. A manuscript, presumed lost, by Herman Melville is hinted at and she, as well as a few others at the bookstore, begin searching for clues to its nature. This book is beautifully written, in a slightly old-fashioned way, show more reminiscent of The Thirteenth Tale. Rosemary is naive, in the way of a sheltered eighteen-year-old, but she isn't stupid. The book explores Melville's friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne and how his career as a writer ended with the publication of Moby Dick. The parts about Melville are eloquent and have me eager to dig into Moby Dick. show less

There's a somewhat recent phrase bandied about the movie review world concerning the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. According to a definition from Wikipedia, this character is a "bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." Well, I think there should be a character type that would cover almost all the primary characters in this work. I’ll call the collection of individuals found in this book a Moronic Unbelievable Menagerie of Morons. I wanted to like this book; I really did. However, there were far too many scenes where I wanted to rip the remaining hair out of my head. If I show more were a fly on one of the Arcade’s walls, I would have flown posthaste into a window or solemnly perched upon Walter Geist's exposed light bulb and found succor in death. In the end, I want no Rosemary for remembrance. I’ve had enough of the Moronic Unbelievable Menagerie of Morons. show less

Rosemary Savage is lost in every sense of the word. Her mother has recently died, and Rosemary is newly arrived in New York City from Australia. Alone and desperate, she ducks into a used bookshop one day and becomes mesmerized. The Arcade (which resembles The Strand in real-life New York) is a sea of books, a place for the lost Rosemary to find herself, or perhaps to vanish even more. She marvels at the knowledge contained within and decides that she has to work there, no matter what it takes. She is reluctantly hired by the owner, George Pike, and his albino manager, Walter Geist. And so Rosemary unwittingly steps into this tale of intrigue and suspicion in which everyone and everything is lost and cannot be found.

The Secret of Lost show more Things hosts an interesting cast of characters, which may be its strongest attribute. The enigmatic Pike and the troubled Geist are just the beginning. There is Pearl, a transsexual who aspires to be an opera singer; Oscar, the emotionally unavailable but brilliant man who captures Rosemary’s heart; and Lillian, the Argentinean woman whose son is missing, presumed dead. Add to that Chap, Mr. Mitchell, and Art, and the reader finds a whirlwind of oddity and deception surrounding the innocence so vividly embodied within Rosemary.

Where The Secret of Lost Things seems to be lacking is in the literary thriller area. It is evident that the book was written to be a tale of literary suspense; here it does not succeed. The novel involves a lost manuscript of Herman Melville’s called The Isle of the Cross. (Apparently, this is actually a true story – Melville’s publisher rejected the manuscript and it has since been lost). Rosemary stumbles upon references to it with Mr. Geist and takes Oscar into her confidence, an indication of her sheer innocence. Rosemary becomes entangled within the web of lies at the Arcade which surround this lost work and eventually plunges headlong into disaster.

While this should be compelling, it simply isn’t. There is something, some element of literary suspense that is critical to the genre, that is missing from Hay’s work. It is tricky to put a finger on exactly what is wrong, but upon reading the book, the slow pace and difficulty to make any headway into the novel signal that there is something wrong.

The book also does not have a satisfying ending. Like the novel itself, the conclusion is ambiguous and the reader is left wondering if any of it was actually real. In novels, there is a healthy level of ambiguity, but this seems to take it one step too far.

While The Secret of Lost Things is a bit of a disappointment on the literary mystery level, it is still worth reading, if only for the eccentric cast of characters that Hay depicts. Any book lover would probably enjoy this novel, but those outside of that characterization will most likely find it rather dull. Overall, it is worth reading – the vivid descriptions of the Arcade will make any reader wish to find employment at a bookstore.

Originally published at Curled Up With a Good Book and reprinted at http://www.skrishnasbooks.com show less

The main character in this novel, Rosemary moves from Tasmania, Australia to New York after the death of her mother. She has a passion for books and finds a job in a large used bookstore called The Arcade. She makes some friends and becomes involved in some intrigue involving an alleged lost manuscript of Herman Mellville's.

This was an enjoyable read and although the plot meanders with a few too many subplots its strength is the quirky characters that inhabit The Arcade. Amongst the mix is an albino bookstore manager, an immigrant woman with a tragic past, the transsexual cashier and Rosemary's infatuation with a man who is obsessed with note taking and trivia but sadly he doesnt feel the same way about her.

The writing is quite show more beautiful and definitely an author to watch and I would recommend this a decent read with characters that linger rather than the story. show less

After the death of her mother, the young Rosemary comes to New York City from Tasmania and gets a job at a famed used book store, one that is filled with a family of peculiar characters: a Dickensian owner, an albino manager, a black transsexual, a distant intellectual and collector of information, two coarse ruffians, and a fat homosexual in charge of the art and photography section. Along with a detailed and accurate depiction of the kinds of intricate relationships that develop in a worksite, the story is full of coincidences and intertwinings that feel mostly natural and real. The plot revolves around a Herman Melville lost manuscript, the protagonist’s desire to learn and belong and be not lost, and the movement of the two are show more craftily paralleled as the story advances. The writing is lovely, distinctive, both broad and intimate, and is peppered with literary references and quotes. Universal wisdom comes frequently (the story is narrated in hindsight) on the qualities of loss and the meaning of suffering. Rosemary is immature, yet fully realized, her emotions vivid and stirring. Nuanced and delicate writing that successfully gathers many oddities gathered together: Tasmania, albinism, and the mystery of the lost novel. show less