Metropolitan Stories

Narrator Jill Eikenberry lends her gentle voice to these subtly humorous short stories of life behind the scenes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Based in reality, they cross over into fantasy when the art comes to life (literally). Eikenberry gives unique voices to antique chairs discussing their previous lives, muses slipping out of their paintings, custodians from the Bronx, and more. The listener feels sympathy for the centuries-old statue of Adam who falls over while trying to move his foot. She offers just the right amount of attitude to the "mezz" girls who serve guests at fundraising events and the two night security guards who tryst in the curator's closet. The stories are a delight, made more so by Eikenberry's splendid narration. J.E.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

August 26, 2019
Coulson’s sly, whimsical debut takes the form of a collection of connected stories set in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
. Grounded in the author’s decades of experience working at the Met, the surreal stories scamper among multiple points of view, both human and other. Ghosts appear, and pieces of furniture and paintings express their opinions. In “Musing,” the museum’s ambitious director seeks a Muse to take to a meeting, auditioning candidates from the Greek and Roman galleries as well as more recently painted Muses, all of whom banter among themselves about him and the auditioning process. In “Big-Boned,” an “underdrawing,” concealed for centuries by the paint of a finished work, slips out to work in the staff cafeteria. “Adam” and “Night Moves” both regard the tumble and fall of a statue, from the views of the statue itself, yearning to wiggle, and the guard who leaves his post by the statue to do the push-ups that he hopes will make him look more manly. The Met that emerges from these stories is both grandiose and cheerfully mundane, a place so packed with wonders that no one person can know them all. Those who think they know the place will be beguiled by the look behind the scenes; those unfamiliar with it will be prompted to make its acquaintance.