Why We Came to the City

Edoardo Ballerini's narration finds an appropriately erudite yet youthful tone that draws the listener in. Four friends come to post-9/11 New York after college to stake out their lives, only to face a personal tragedy within their group. The audiobook may speak most clearly to listeners who relate closely to the experiences of these characters: young university graduates navigating the city during the early recession years. The themes, however, are universal. Ballerini provides the right tone for these engaging characters, who are collectively earnest, witty, sarcastic, and thoughtful. S.C. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

January 11, 2016
Jansma's compelling paean to New York City features a group of post-college friends who manage the vagaries of love and friendship against the backdrop of living in the big city: opportunity, stress, beauty, as well as the allure of the über rich juxtaposed against the impoverished. The cast includes Irene Richmond, an artist supporting her craft by working at a hip art gallery; George Murphy, an astronomer whose life research may be imploding; his college girlfriend and soon to be wife, Sara Sherman, an editor for a paper; William Cho, working in investments, living with his mother, and harboring a crush on Irene; and Jacob Blaumann, the quintessential graduate not living up to his potentialâhaving made his mark as a poet, but working as an orderly at a mental health facility in the suburbs and having an affair with his boss. Underneath the interactions between the characters lurks an examination of relationships and the ways friendship is tested when one in their midst is beset by a rare form of cancer. Steering clear of the maudlin, the author gives searing portrayals of both challenging cancer treatment and how true friends rise to the occasion when necessary. Jansma (The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards) pens a tightly-written, smartly conceived story that puts an insightful spin on life in the Big Apple.