My friend Arthur recommended this to me, because it takes place in Inman, Central, and Harvard. How many novels can you think of that take place in the urban Boston area and aren’t a) historical fiction told from, say, the point of view of Abigail Adams’ personal maid or b) a tale of growing up tough and Catholic in Southie? I couldn’t think of any, frankly, and if you can I want to hear about them. Particularly if they open, as this does, a couple of blocks from my house! That’s hard to pass up.
Unfortunately, it’s not the world’s best book. It dawdles along, hopping from story to story and back again – four friends wandering around town (one of whom died at the beginning of the book, but is still able to have a pint at the Abbey Lounge because his body, like the titular scientist’s cat, hasn’t yet been observed), the conspiracy crackpot President of Montana, a Central Square bag lady, a mysterious “we” who is sorry they ever met up with Dr. Schroedinger (as he turns out to be quite the freeloader); from first person to second person to a Rube Goldberg-esque cartoon and an awesome parody of Shakespearean comedy that comes out of nowhere.
All the stories collide at the end (in JFK Park), of course. Normally I’m a sucker for “look at how all these seemingly random threads intersect!” stories, and my love for that (and for the setting, of course), got me to finish the book. In the end, though, there was still a bit too much “random” and not enough “intersect” for my taste. The Great Book of My Boston has yet to be written.
11 responses so far ↓
1 Randy // Jan 7, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Zodiac, by Neil Stephenson. It’s a Stephenson book (so it starts fast and gets faster moving from there), and the protagonist is a self-(accurately)-described professional asshole, but it’s a good book. And he is on the side of the angels. Basically :-}.
2 Martha // Jan 7, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Hard Love, by Ellen Wittlinger – the main character lives somewhere on the North Shore and comes in to stay with his dad in the Back Bay on weekends. Lots of Newbury Street; very late-nineties, with zine kids and an Ani DiFranco concert at the Orpheum. I don’t totally love the book, but it gets the setting dead on.
I feel like there’s more YA in contemporary Cambridge/Somerville, but that might just be the stories I tell myself in my head? Oh, and the Anastasia Krupnik books have those occasional mentions – Anastasia being all annoyed when they move from Harvard Square to the *suburbs*, and then when she takes the bus downtown to go to modeling school and talks to the bookstore owner on Beacon Hill.
3 Ruth // Jan 7, 2007 at 6:40 pm
it sounds like an interesting book despite it’s flaws.
The nano novel I wrote takes place in Boston, but I don’t think it counts :)
4 colorwheel // Jan 7, 2007 at 7:52 pm
adult: Far Afield, by Susanna Kaysen, starts in Cambridge and moves to… Reykjavik?
some old Marge Piercy books are located here, i think. and also the ones by her husband Ira Wood?
middle grade: Hatching Magic, by Ann Downer, is in Cambridge and Boston. I think the protagonist’s house is behind Inman Square.
and I LOVE Hard Love (sorry Martha!)
5 Martini-Corona // Jan 7, 2007 at 10:39 pm
This is probably apocryphal, but Mim (?) mentioned once that Neal Stephenson wrote, under a pseudonym, a novel(la) set in Boston where hardbitten survivors of some sort of apocalypse… worship the Citgo sign. Or is this just something I dreamed?
6 Sara // Jan 7, 2007 at 11:30 pm
I don’t know about the rest of the book, but one of the stories in Kelly Link’s “Magic for Beginners” starts like this:
“I used to go to thrift stores with my friends. We’d take the train into Boston, and go to The Garment District, which is this huge vintage clothing warehouse….”
full text here: http://www.lcrw.net/fictionplus/link-handbag.htm
7 Sam // Jan 8, 2007 at 7:59 am
M-C, that’s “The Big U,” which I think he wrote under his own name. (Or it’s been republished that way, anyway.) And the only apocalypse they are survivors of is college (BU, is the implication) – the ones who worship the Citgo sign are frat members. (It’s not actually the Citgo sign in the book – it’s a giant glowing wheel – and Boston is unrecognizable because no one ever leaves campus. But I guess Stephenson went to BU, so “everyone knows” that it’s set in Boston and the wheel = Citgo sign.) Other characters include D&D gamers for whom things become A Little Too Real and a girl who is so freaked out by her entire soulless college experience that she hides in her single and paints murals on the walls. It is an awesome book.
8 Thomas Colthurst // Jan 8, 2007 at 8:55 am
A significant portion of _Infinite Jest_ takes place in Inman Square, and in a fictionalized Allston/Brighton.
9 Jessica // Jan 8, 2007 at 9:03 am
There’s also a mystery series set in Boston, about a PI and taxi driver, by Linda Barnes. I read a few of them in grad school, before moving back here, so I don’t remember how much Combridge and Somerville she’s got.
And the recent (intersteing, but very slap-dash in the writing) Merchant Prince series by Charles Stross starts out in Cabridge, and involves cross-over worlds (in the grand fantasy tradition).
10 Jess // Jan 9, 2007 at 11:29 am
Boston area books: The Saint of Incipient Insanities (Elif Shafak). Intuition (Allegra Goodman). Chelsea Whistle (Michelle Tea). All the Spenser novels, though I sort of doubt that’s what you were going for. Wrinkle in Time is set in New England, at least, though it’s got more sort of a Western-Mass feel to it. And I have to throw in Make Way for Ducklings.
Big U was Stephenson’s first, and it’s flimsier than his later work, but it’s fun. I have it, Aili, if you want to borrow it.
11 anna // Jan 15, 2007 at 12:30 pm
so, sam, have you started writing it yet?
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