Men Like Air

by Tom Connolly

It is April in Manhattan and the destinies of four very different men are about to collide. Nineteen-year-old Finn has just arrived in the city with his irrepressible and volatile girlfriend, Dilly, determined to even the score with his older brother Jack for abandoning him in the UK in the aftermath of their parents’ deaths. Across town, successful gallery owner Leo Emerson is haunted by loneliness, unsettled by the contrast between his life and that of his brother-in-law and oldest friend Isidor, who is enviably contented in his faith and his marriage. When Finn wanders into Leo’s gallery, a series of unexpected and interconnected events unfold, changing the lives of all four men, for better or worse. Leo and Isidor’s settled existences are overturned by events outside of their control, while Jack and Finn’s complex relationship reaches its long overdue showdown. Beautifully orchestrated and richly comic, Men Like Air explores the romance and solitude of cosmopolitan life, the transformative power of art, and the impact we have on one another’s lives—and what happens when the ties that bind us are tested or broken. It is an intense and uplifting story of growth and renewal, mapping the complex workings of the human heart across the streets of New York City.

Genres: Fiction

400 pages, Paperback

Published September 22, 2016

Reviews

[Tripfiction · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novel set in NEW YORK CITY (a love letter to the city)

This review first appeared on our blog where the author chats about the city and shares personal photos of the city: http://www.tripfiction.com/novel-set-...

This is April in the city, the city that never sleeps, the city that is dreamy and multifaceted, loud and vibrant, never dull.

Nineteen year old Finn flies in with his girlfriend Dilly. Where will they be staying? Certainly not in the scrubby apartment that Finn has organised. And his brother, Jack, is less than welcoming due to a severe head cold. But there is old history between the brothers following the death of both their parents.

New York City is a major character in this novel, the streets and avenues cradle the lines of the narrative and it is against this backdrop that Finn begins to find his feet. The characters navigate the city, uptown, downtown, across the water, up to 10th Street and on, from the crockery and old T shirts to the canvases and installations beyond… Finn strays into Leo’s gallery and the book opens up to explore relationships that morph and meander across the grid of the city. It is a novel about friendship, art and understanding the person we might be… and of course about New York.

Finn finds himself heading out from Grand Central to Queens, and descends on the New Calvary Cemetery, and turns to look back at the mountain range of brick and steel peaks called Manhattan. There are just wonderful turns of phrase that capture the feel of the city and the nuances of everyday life, at which Tom Connolly excels. You can tell that he is not only an author, but also a film maker, his prose has a very visual quality to it.

If you can find your way to our website, we feature the author talking about New York City and his impressions, plus he shares personal photos of the city.

[Allan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a book that started off promisingly, but ultimately tried to do too much with too many characters and as a result failed to live up to its potential.

The author used a narrative style in the early parts of the book of switching focus from one character's thoughts and feelings to another's from one paragraph to the next, which was confusing at first but a really interesting approach which I came to like, and like myself he obviously has a serious fondness for NYC as a city and stage for his story, but with too many narrative threads, some not really going anywhere, his desire to create a classic set in the city unfortunately wasn't achieved in my opinion.

[Paul Holden · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a truly wonderful book. I haven’t read about characters portrayed so vividly, and effortlessly, like these for a long time. If ever perhaps. Maybe because I read a lot of crime novels. But this book reminds me why I made my foray into general fiction in the first place. It helps, of course, that it is set in New York, a city I could never tire of reading about. And I could read about these characters for the rest of my life, or theirs at least, in literary terms. It is a book about four men, two young and two middle-aged, all trying to find their way in life with varying degrees of success. Finn is the closest we have to a main character and it is with him that the story opens, on a plane from England, with his irrepressible and slightly irritating girlfriend Dilly. Finn is on a mission to reconcile his brother Jack to the abandonment he bestowed upon Finn when Jack left for America after their parents died. The reunion doesn’t go to plan and Dilly gets in the way, but Finn realises that he no longer wants to punch his brother.

Leo runs an art gallery and adopts Finn, seeing in him the son Leo never had. Leo has managed to reach middle age alone and is wondering how it happened. William is his brother-in-law and best friend who works as an archivist in an old-fashioned department store. He attends church with his wife Joy, Leo’s sister, and looks after a struggling heroin addict, Susan. Williams story arc is the darkest and most dramatic. But it is the character arcs of Finn and Jack that hold your interest. There is a particularly brilliant scene towards the end, where Jack is high on cough syrup in Dilly’s parents house, and Finn has to be the responsible one. A complete role reversal with hilarious consequences. Dilly, thankfully, disappears for most of the book and I started to not care about her character arc resolving. But when she returned and it started to happen I immediately felt bad as it became clear she has her own issues. There was a point towards the end where I thought all four stories were naturally coming to an end, but I was glad they didn’t. Otherwise we would have missed out on the reflection of the two brothers, a reconciliation long overdue, which provides this book with immense heart.

I will (eventually) track down every other novel Tom Connolly has written. If all of his books are this brilliant then he deserves to be much more widely read and recognised.

[Celia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Demasiadas descripciones

[Evie · Rating 1 out of 5]

[DNF 49%]

I want to burn the characters alive. And not to be dramatic, but this is the worst book I’ve ever read. There is no plot at all, I didn’t find any “comedy” but dirty scenes and the POVs are just a mess.

I’ve put myself through this so none of you have to. I have to read it for my english test next monday (and I always do read the books because I genuinely don’t wanna fail) and I’ve tried for months, but this is imposible.

[Thelastwordreview · Rating 5 out of 5]

New York, the big apple, the city that never sleeps. It is a city that so many words have been written about even sung about. Now a novel that captures the very heart of New York City. Men Like Air by Tom Connolly really is an epic love letter to that very city.

It is Springtime in New York and destiny is about to come calling for a group of men, they don’t actually know this yet but it is coming. Finn is 19 years-old and has just arrived in the city with Dilly his girlfriend who is something of a character both leaving behind a previous life, running away perhaps. Just they are not quite sure where they are about to stay. Men Like Air could well be the ultimate love story but things don’t always go to plan as in life. Dilly is one key character in this young couple and she is full of passion at the very start of this novel, but soon the story has a twist in store for the reader. The main element of Connolly’s incredible writing is how he manages to make this story into something beautiful and unforgettable. Just watch how the story becomes about four men, four lost men. For Jack the reason he is here is because he has to seek out Jack his brother following the death of their parents Jack abandoned Finn soon after. This is more or less about men’s relationships with each other.

Along the way we meet other men such as Leo who runs a gallery and suffers great loneliness and seems to be in the shadow of his brother-in-law William who is everything that Leo isn’t. The connection between these two men really is all about how men handle relationships with each other. Something happens out of the ordinary that will shape and change the lives of the men involved.

This is everything you want in a pure novel sense, at times full of emotion and tender as well as being funny. The real beauty of Men Like Air is that it is human in all its facets. Sheer bloody brilliant and for me it captivated me unlike any other book this year but in a unique way. Connolly’s writing is rich in the way he writes in the characters and just how he has managed to play with the emotions of the reader laughing one moment and almost in crying the next. The ultimate love letter to New York. Men Like Air is one of my books of 2016 and should not be missed.

[Michael J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful writing

[Holly Noyce Barnham · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up Men Like Air randomly in the pound shop, and it doesn't have much attention on here, but it utterly deserves some. The prose in this book is stunning - amongst the very best I've ever read - it's beautiful, funny, honest, and totally human. I have no idea why it doesn't seem to have sold well, or been read more widely because it absolutely deserves to. Tom Connolly has a fantastic sense of humour, of irony, and a massive heart for his characters, each of whom come with back stories and inner lives. It's a book that I'd have wanted to see nominated for prizes, not sitting on the shelf in Poundland, and it baffles me as to why this is the case. His previous book, The Spider Truces, seems to have more attention and I've ordered a copy.
Men Like Air is about four men, two pairs of brothers (in a way) whose lives coincide in New York. Tom Connolly's NYC is vivid, beloved, but somehow warm and familiar; the plot is entirely believable, and although there are a few moments when things almost don't make sense, it was never enough to suspend my disbelief, and that's something a lot of far more successful books can't say. Almost every page of this novel had a line, or plural lines, which tickled me, made me smile or even laugh a little, and the action was so vivid, the prose so utterly beautiful - I really just want everyone to pick this book up and read it and adore it as I did, for its authenticity and it's raw beauty.

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Men Like Air was a goodreads win.

I wasn’t sure about this book. It featured the lives of men – and I am a woman. It was set in New York, where I have never been. Most of the characters are young – and I, like two of the characters am old. It had a good star rating, and I liked the cover, so I thought I would give it a go – try something different!

The cover picture gives a good impression of city skyscrapers, partly obscured by light and distance. You feel you are floating in the air above it. The title ‘Men Like Air’ had me a bit baffled though. Do men like, or prefer air – the space and light above the city, rather than the streets below? Or are men like, or similar to air, rather difficult to define and allusive? After reading the book, I am no less baffled!

The story concerns individuals whose lives cross in the city. Finn and his brother Jack are young and trying to come to terms with I difficult childhood which resulted in the death of their parents, and a physical and emotional chasm between them. Leo and William are old and trying to come to terms with age, remembering the past and making sense of their impending mortality. When their paths cross, Finn learns from Leo’s maturity and his youth gives Leo a new lease of life. Women drift through the story, but are not really central to it. Dilly is Finns girlfriend, over sexed and neurotic. Holly is Jack’s girlfriend, but a bit of a shadowy figure. Joy is Leo’s sister and William’s wife, a cosy figure in the background who keeps the two men together, giving them a legitimate excuse to be best friends.

I like the detailed description of the city, with little details that bring it to life – a shutter crowbarred open like the corner of an envelope – a pile of rubbish that had been there long enough to have weathered and attained personality. The description of snow and blossom falling was very lyrical –snow fell with the blossom, they danced and dropped together, landing on the sidewalk where the flowers remained and the flakes made a brief impression then melted away to nothing. I could imagine the city, even if I had never been there.

As an older person, some observations made by Leo rang true. “somewhere, his early life had separated from the one he was living now, so cleanly that his former years seemed to belong to a different man”.

Descriptions of the city and relationships between the people are woven into a rich tapestry, moving seamlessly along – maybe like the air flowing through the buildings?

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

'The mist rising off the East River was the lazy sigh of a city hauling itself to it's feet. The vibration of the traffic from Delancey Street was the slow drag on a cigarette by the grocery porter sitting on the tailgate of his truck at the intersection of East Broadway and Grand'.

Men Like Air is a beautifully written, very visual, homage to New York City, it's inhabitants and it's visitors. In depicting the lives of four very different souls who are traversing it's streets, New York City is captured in such a way feels like a character in it's own right. The central characters are so authentically and believably rendered they seem to live off the page- it's easy to wonder about their lives, their days, between readings. The nuances of human connectedness and relationships- be they familial, sexual, marital, romantic, friendly or workplace- are deftly and perceptively described. It considers the way our relationship with ourselves, our future, and one another, morphs over time. An exploration of life, love, loneliness and regret- it's poignant, poetic, warm and witty. It also has one of the most comedic scenes I've ever read :)

'I make a list of things I won't do next time I'm with people. I promise myself I won't talk again without thinking. But the next time I remember the resolution is the next time I have broken it...'

'Finn's delight at not knowing where the hell they were was identical in it's force to Dilly's fear of not knowing, and her despair at wanting so much from any given moment that she felt perpetually poor.'

'William searched for absolutes from life, and the peace he gave to this girl (she was a woman but too frail to earn the word) in small, gratefully accepted pieces, seemed to be one of them; a good thing, surely a good thing. The sight of her gladdened him and scared him in equal measure; it always had done..'

'Solitude was a self-fulfilling prophecy, a crude oil that had gotten into the blade and phalanx of his wings.'

'He would never be a Father. This most obvious and least new of facts barged in on his day and hit him like a slow-moving vehicle, and, somehow, left him shocked all over again.'

'Somewhere, his early life had separated from the one he was living now, so cleanly that his former years seemed to belong to a different man.'

'Many things had rendered Finn speechless in his life but none had undone him with their beauty. The delicate, eggshell sinews of Amy's hand in his were a miracle that did not diminish a second or third time. It was a whole world in itself. They said little as they walked, other than to share the occasional observation, all of which amounted to nothing more than another way of saying 'I like you'.'

[Isaac L · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate leaving books unfinished, but I really couldn’t go on. This was a challenge to the very logic and sensibilities of reading fiction.

Connolly’s writing itself isn’t the problem - he knows how to string a sentence and turn a phrase. His locations are effective and his characters are, for the most part, believable (if at times a little overdone for dramatic effect).
No, the infuriating, omnipresent, tiring problem is point of view. It’s all over the place. At times, paragraph to paragraph, we are wrenched from one character’s POV to another. I would have had literary whiplash if I didn’t have to keep stopping to check whose head I was in all the time. In fact, sometimes the POV essentially stays with one character but sort of dips into the subjective experience of another like they’re reading a notice of their inner-workings and past on their forehead. This really is no way to write a novel, good, bad or otherwise.

I hope whichever editor gave this the all-clear is now in charge of no more than making the tea.

[William Stafford · Rating 5 out of 5]

This beautifully written book makes you care about the characters - I was especially struck by the relationship between Finn and gallery owner Leo. There are some funny (in a wry way) lines, often spoken by minor characters that add to the New York flavour, and I found myself not wanting to reach the end - which is probably the best compliment one can pay to a novel. Intelligent, sharp and witty.

[Annette Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this romp around New York City with some very likeable characters. It's great fun with some serious and insightful undertones and is also a lovely story. Especially like the role that art and art galleries have to play in it.

[Philip Carman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost stopped reading after the first 70 or so pages, as a bit too graphic at times. But am glad I continued as became more about how the lives intertwined and hence more readable.

[Katy · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a disappointment. Started off well, the crit. was good but it went downhill.

[Laura Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy and engaging book! Occasional erotic scenes and overall relatable story and characters!

[Noreen · Rating 5 out of 5]

At times slow; and it took some time to get used to the complicated long sentences; but a refreshingly different book

[Louise Norton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Took me a while to get into this book. Female characters unbelievable and the first one was very annoying but thankfully she disappears after a couple of chapters.

[B J]

Three references to oral sex in first couple of pages so I binned it.

[Ines · Rating 1 out of 5]

que cosa más aburrida y que personajes más planos

[Nadia Romero · Rating 1 out of 5]

the worst book I have read in my life. Just read it because of an english test.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

7/10 - this read got to me about a third of the way through, and I began to empathize with the main characters.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

For me it was a solid 3.5. Beautifully written, like the Spider Truces, but I didn't fall into it in quite the same way.