Kings County

May 15, 2020
After the death of a former friend, a Brooklyn couple finds their lives beginning to unravel. In his second novel, author and memoirist Goodwillie paints a captivatingly vivid portrait of young love in New York in the early 2000s. Drawn by the promise of the city, Audrey and Theo are a creative couple who both escaped their respective dead-end towns and broken families. Struggling to make it in Bushwick, Audrey, a jack-of-all-trades for a well-known indie label, and Theo, a literary scout for a Hollywood production company, seem like polar opposites at first. After meeting at a concert, they fall into a deep love built on trust and devoid of secrets--or so they thought. When Audrey hears a rumor that someone from her past jumped off the Williamsburg Bridge, her life and relationship start to come apart at the seams. An old secret rises to the surface, putting Audrey and Theo in danger. The novel's characterizations of people--from Brooklyn musicians to Upper East Siders--and the city itself are its biggest strength: "It had taken [Theo] a decade to gain his footing, but New York was funny that way. Occasionally, he thought he understood the city in a profound way. Most of the time he was confused about everything." It's a simple yet perfect encapsulation of the perpetual intimacy and elusiveness of Manhattan. Goodwillie's writing is full of not only impressive detail and fondness, but also self-awareness: "Audrey and Theo were not true pioneers. They'd arrived, instead, with the first swell of settlers, and had watched with timeworn gentrifiers' dismay as the swells became waves." Throughout the novel, the Occupy movement beats wildly in the background, and the pages are littered with current and lost locales like Caf� Loup, Saint Vitus and Balthazar. Aside from the plot (which sometimes falls on the overdramatic side), the novel is a panoramic time capsule of youth and self-discovery in the aughts in New York City. A compelling--if slightly melodramatic--portrait of youth, love, and a lost era of New York.

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May 18, 2020
Goodwillie (American Subversive) dully resurrects the New York City of the recent past, when Occupy Wall Street occupied the headlines, fixtures such as Café Loup catered to Manhattan cognoscenti, and the Turkey’s Nest dive bar welcomed Brooklyn’s newest hipsters. Among these are Audrey Benton, a failed actor who babysits bands for a Brooklyn music label, and Theo Gorski, a book editor turned literary scout for films, both of whom arrived as recent college graduates shortly after 9/11. In 2011, after dating for three years, Audrey and Theo hit a series of bumps when one of Audrey’s friends, Fender, disappears. Audrey’s Bushwick apartment is then broken into and someone leaves behind a note with four names on it—Audrey and her three best friends, including Fender, whose name has a check mark next to it. Audrey’s confession of a sordid secret from her past causes a rift between her and Theo, who separately try to find out who is behind the threat. It takes Goodwillie until the halfway point to introduce the mystery element, but even then, thrills are strangely absent, and Theo’s casual sociology falls flat (“He was not politically active, but he was a watcher of the world, and the Occupy movement intrigued him”). Despite an attempt at Wolfean verisimilitude, this slipshod novel reads more like a Wienie Roast of the Vanities.

June 1, 2020
Goodwillie's (American Subversive, 2010) second novel is set against a changing Manhattan and Brooklyn in the years after 9/11 through the Occupy Movement. Following a rollicking, try-anything period, Audrey has settled into a more adult life, working for an indie music label and moving in with Theo, a former book editor who works as a literary scout for films. Things are near idyllic between them until Audrey finds out that her old friend Fender has jumped from the Williamsburg Bridge, stirring up an event from her past that she's kept hidden from Theo. After their apartment is ransacked, Audrey's convinced that someone murdered Fender and is out to get her, too. While this mystery falls flat, the more compelling puzzle is what exactly happened to Audrey that would put her in danger. Goodwillie's setting is vivid and his characters rich, with flashbacks fleshing out their backstories. Those who like literary, character-driven fiction with a strong sense of place, think Nickolas Butler's Shotgun Lovesongs (2014), will enjoy this coming-of-age story with elements of romance and mystery.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)