Astrid Sees All

November 1, 2020
A coming-of-age story set in the artsy, druggy, seedy, sexy downtown underground of 1980s New York. After a string of well-received YA books, Standiford's first novel for adults hearkens back to the days, or should we say nights, of Slaves of New York and Bright Lights Big City. Baltimorean Phoebe and Manhattanite Carmen, who met as undergraduates at Brown, are having a hell of a time finding a livable apartment in the East Village--until Carmen's boyfriend's heroin dealer is busted and they beeline over to his apartment to corner his landlady before the place goes on the market. That's the kind of you-had-to-be-there detail that makes this book. Conversations overheard at parties include descriptions of over-the-top fashion statements and performance art projects; there are cameos by Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, Grace Jones, Debbie Harry, and more: The author's glee in evoking the zeitgeist of the 1980s is infectious. Perhaps her somewhat less successful approach to plot can be forgiven. The novel's abundant storylines include Phoebe's grief about her father's death and estrangement from her mother, the imbalance of power in her friendship with Carmen, an affair with a married doctor with a painful outcome, the possibility that she is being followed, and her burgeoning career as a club-scene fortuneteller, building on a childhood game of saving movie ticket stubs in a box and pulling them like Tarot cards to divine the future. (" 'Does Darryl Morgan like me?' All The President's Men. That's a yes.") All this would have been plenty; when a detail about the growing number of missing girls whose faces are tacked up around the neighborhood morphs into a thriller subplot, it seems like it belongs in a different book. Smart details, lively digressions, and spot-on period snapshots keep an overloaded plot afloat.

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March 15, 2021
The author of several books for children and young adults, Standiford takes readers to 1984 Lower Manhattan in her adult debut. Scraping by in the city, recent college-graduate Phoebe heads home to Baltimore when she learns of her dad's terminal illness. Her mom wants her to stay, but Phoebe can't miss her New Year's Eve gig at the superhot nightclub Plutonium. With the help of her friend Carmen, she flees, and the two find their own decent-enough place, recently vacated by Carmen's boyfriend Atti's heroin dealer. The novel rolls through atomic nights at Plutonium, where Phoebe becomes known as Astrid the Star Girl, reading fellow partiers' futures with her collection of old movie tickets, and she and her friends maintain a consistent high. Standiford captures a beating, smoky world there, and within Phoebe, who keeps her deepest feelings hidden from everyone but readers. Meanwhile, danger seems everywhere, and Atti needs increasing care from Carmen. There is page-turning plot aplenty here, dealing with the pains of grief, addiction, and simply growing up, all made endurable by love and friendship.

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March 26, 2021

The first adult novel from YA and children's author Standiford (The Secret Tree) is a whirling trip back to New York City in the 1980s. Recently graduated from Brown University, sensitive Phoebe Hayes escapes her Baltimore home and the sudden death of her father, and moves to New York City. She's obsessed with her elusive college friend Carmen, a New York native who seems to have all the cool accoutrements: showbiz-adjacent parents, a heroin-addicted boyfriend living in a squat, and social connections. Carmen and Phoebe move into an apartment on the Lower East Side and immerse themselves in the neighborhood's nightlife, drinking, drugging, and scraping by on coffee shop wages. Phoebe lucks into a gig telling fortunes at the trendiest club in the neighborhood; she adopts the name Astrid and soon gathers a loyal clientele of scenesters and celebrities. Carmen and Phoebe both get involved with a hunky artist; Phoebe sees ghosts in Tompkins Square Park; posters of missing girls litter the streets. When Phoebe and Carmen have a falling-out, Phoebe is cast dangerously adrift. VERDICT Standiford's novel is worth reading for its dark and dazzling depiction of New York's "last bohemia" and believable youthful recklessness and angst. But too many plot lines and an unconvincing, overstuffed climax result in a work that falls short.--Liz French, Library Journal

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