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The Party Upstairs
An electrifying debut novel that unfolds in the course of a single day inside one genteel New York City apartment building, as tensions between the building's super and his grown-up daughter spark a crisis that will, by day's end, have changed everything.
Ruby has a strange relationship to privilege, having grown up the super's daughter in the basement of an Upper West Side co-op that is full-on gentrified, and getting more so with each passing year. She wasn't economically privileged herself, but her close childhood friendship with the daughter of wealthy tenants named Caroline, and the mere fact of living in a lovely neighborhood, close to her beloved Natural History Museum and just across the park from the Met, brought with them certain real advantages, even expectations. Naturally Ruby followed her dreams and took out large student loans to attend a prestigious small liberal arts college and explore her interest in art. But now, out of school for a while, she is no closer to her dream job, or anything resembling it, and she's been forced by circumstances to do the last thing she wanted to do: move back in with her parents, back in the basement apartment of the building. And Caroline is throwing one of her parties tonight, in her father's glorious penthouse apartment, a party Ruby looks forward to and dreads in equal measure.
With exquisite narrative control, The Party Upstairs distills down worlds of wisdom about families, great expectations, and the hidden violence of class into the gripping, darkly witty story of a single fateful day inside a single Manhattan co-op. Told from the alternating perspectives of the super, Martin, and his daughter, Ruby, as they are obliged, one way or another, to interact with the various species of inhabitant of the little ecosystem of their building, the novel builds from the spark of an early morning argument between Martin and Ruby to the ultimate conflagration that results by day's end. By the time the ashes have cooled, the fa�ade that masks the building's power structures of dominance and submission will have burned away, and no party will be left unscathed.
Ruby has a strange relationship to privilege, having grown up the super's daughter in the basement of an Upper West Side co-op that is full-on gentrified, and getting more so with each passing year. She wasn't economically privileged herself, but her close childhood friendship with the daughter of wealthy tenants named Caroline, and the mere fact of living in a lovely neighborhood, close to her beloved Natural History Museum and just across the park from the Met, brought with them certain real advantages, even expectations. Naturally Ruby followed her dreams and took out large student loans to attend a prestigious small liberal arts college and explore her interest in art. But now, out of school for a while, she is no closer to her dream job, or anything resembling it, and she's been forced by circumstances to do the last thing she wanted to do: move back in with her parents, back in the basement apartment of the building. And Caroline is throwing one of her parties tonight, in her father's glorious penthouse apartment, a party Ruby looks forward to and dreads in equal measure.
With exquisite narrative control, The Party Upstairs distills down worlds of wisdom about families, great expectations, and the hidden violence of class into the gripping, darkly witty story of a single fateful day inside a single Manhattan co-op. Told from the alternating perspectives of the super, Martin, and his daughter, Ruby, as they are obliged, one way or another, to interact with the various species of inhabitant of the little ecosystem of their building, the novel builds from the spark of an early morning argument between Martin and Ruby to the ultimate conflagration that results by day's end. By the time the ashes have cooled, the fa�ade that masks the building's power structures of dominance and submission will have burned away, and no party will be left unscathed.
309 pages, Hardcover
First published July 7, 2020
338 people are currently reading
8469 people want to read
About the author
Lee Conell
2 books66 followersLee Conell has taught for Southern Word, SUNY New Paltz, and Vanderbilt University, where she earned her MFA. Her fiction has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Glimmer Train, Kenyon Review online, Guernica, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere.
(source: Amazon)
(source: Amazon)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 380 reviews
July 14, 2020
This story remarkably analyzes the social differences between middle class and NY’s Upper side social elites and high society.
The things I enjoyed: Impeccably realistic reflection of a Martin’s daily life portrait who works as a super. His detest and growing disdain to the pretentious, arrogant tenants of the building. His resentment, faults, wishes to go back to make different choices and take another path for a more vivid life. From the flashbacks we get more about his past story, his grief about the loss of his wife he still misses and his struggling dysfunctional relationship with his daughter. It’s dramatic, sad and also realistic and his character is easily relatable.
But I cannot say the same for the daughter Ruby’s character. She was so volatile, hostile, unpredictable and annoying. I understand that she befriended Caroline when she was little and she wants to her privileges in her life just like her friend has and he’s jealousy turns into blaming the people around her. She doesn’t do anything to make changes in her life even though she is young enough to make fresh starts. Instead of changing herself and her life choices, she is unpredictably aggressive and hateful to her own dad.
Now the story focused on father and daughter’s one day in the apartment and Ruby wants to participate to the special party Caroline throws at family penthouse which brings out more outbursts and high tension between her own family dynamics.
Overall: It was still more than panoramic but intensely well-crafted view about NY elites lives and the middle classes struggle to keep their heads above the water. The characterization was impressive even though I hate the guts of the daughter. It’s fast, interesting reading. And let’s not forget its spectacular cover which made me request the book without thinking a second.
Special thanks to Edelweiss and Penguin Publishing Group for sharing this ARC in exchange my honest review.
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The things I enjoyed: Impeccably realistic reflection of a Martin’s daily life portrait who works as a super. His detest and growing disdain to the pretentious, arrogant tenants of the building. His resentment, faults, wishes to go back to make different choices and take another path for a more vivid life. From the flashbacks we get more about his past story, his grief about the loss of his wife he still misses and his struggling dysfunctional relationship with his daughter. It’s dramatic, sad and also realistic and his character is easily relatable.
But I cannot say the same for the daughter Ruby’s character. She was so volatile, hostile, unpredictable and annoying. I understand that she befriended Caroline when she was little and she wants to her privileges in her life just like her friend has and he’s jealousy turns into blaming the people around her. She doesn’t do anything to make changes in her life even though she is young enough to make fresh starts. Instead of changing herself and her life choices, she is unpredictably aggressive and hateful to her own dad.
Now the story focused on father and daughter’s one day in the apartment and Ruby wants to participate to the special party Caroline throws at family penthouse which brings out more outbursts and high tension between her own family dynamics.
Overall: It was still more than panoramic but intensely well-crafted view about NY elites lives and the middle classes struggle to keep their heads above the water. The characterization was impressive even though I hate the guts of the daughter. It’s fast, interesting reading. And let’s not forget its spectacular cover which made me request the book without thinking a second.
Special thanks to Edelweiss and Penguin Publishing Group for sharing this ARC in exchange my honest review.
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August 10, 2020
Insightful observations about class and privilege and proximity. Very much a New York novel.
July 7, 2020
NOW AVAILABLE!!!
conell’s debut is a contemporary spin on the upstairs/downstairs trope; a novel set in an upscale upper west side co-op where, over the course of a single day, the tensions resulting from several small conflicts between the building’s residents and martin, its super, will escalate from “simmering” to “explosively boiling over everywhere,” culminating in a class-clash confrontation on the building’s rooftop, one many years in the making. <—the confrontation. but maybe also the rooftop, who knows?
recently returned to her parents’ nest after a breakup, martin’s 24-year-old daughter ruby is unemployed, deeply in debt, and—her university background in art history with a specialization in dioramas—professionally adrift.
throughout her childhood, ruby roamed freely between her family’s tiny basement apartment nestled in with the other rough working parts of the building all the way up to her best friend caroline’s penthouse, stopping somewhere in the middle to visit with the delightfully marxist lily, who dispensed wisdom and sass from her rent-controlled apartment until her death. crossing the upstairs/downstairs divide—literally and figuratively—for so long has given ruby loyalties to both sides, left her influenced by both ‘worlds,’ yet she’s unable to belong to or really be understood by either of ‘em.
ruby’s always had a weirdish proximal relationship to wealth—her father’s job afforded her the opportunity to live in a nice neighborhood and a fancy building whose tenants depended on him to fix a thing or unclog a thing, all the while politely pretending to ignore their class differences with great shows of faux-deference or camaraderie. being friends with caroline also blurred some lines, and ruby’s grown up aware of but not fully appreciating the gulf o’economic disparity between the tenants and her family, socializing and dating within a rarified circle of trust fund kids cushioned by their family wealth, enjoying her careless college (and then post-college) years killing time as a barista, realizing too late how precarious her financial situation is.
there’s a real disconnect here between the wealthy and the working; tenants who are well-off and want to be seen as above it all; cheerfully indulgent and overfamiliar with ‘the help,’ but also clueless enough to think it’s appropriate to pay for services with starbucks gift cards, to make unreasonable demands, to subtly exert power while grinning like a buddy. there’s a similar disconnect between caroline and ruby; this kind of impasse where, despite their friendship, caroline’s life of unexamined privilege prevents her from understanding ruby’s reality—for example, that unpaid internships are an unimaginable luxury for people living hand-to-mouth.
the selling point of this book* is the relationship between martin and ruby—a man and his adult daughter who love each other but have wildly different personalities and spend the whole day struggling to communicate, wanting to feel valued by the other but mostly feeling hurt and misunderstood. their love is clumsy and messy and heartbreakingly real.
martin’s discomfort with ruby began when she started hanging out with caroline, and when she went off to school …he had most feared that she would start to behave like the tenants in the building. he’s gruff with her now because he’s scared for her—about what might happen to her if she doesn’t start taking her life and her career seriously.
he’s frustrated by ruby’s casual attitude to figuring out her next steps—resurfacing his fears that she’s become too influenced by caroline and her wealthy friends, who—unlike ruby—can afford to take a leisurely approach to life.
ruby’s got her own goals, though, and she’s more clear-eyed about the upstairs people than her father realizes, but she doesn’t actually grasp how tenuous martin’s position is, how superficial the tenants’ magnanimity, how intricate the social game that keeps everyone happy, and how easily it can all topple down.
anyway, tonight caroline’s having one of her epic parties, the ones that tend to, despite martin’s admonitions, spill out onto the rooftop. should be fun!
i enjoyed this one—it has great character work and it’s a coolheaded look at the class divide in nyfc; in the very neighborhood where i work my itty-bitty retail job selling books to people who…can afford a lot of books. and while the customers are the most pleasant i’ve encountered—effortlessly polite and patient to an extent that it makes me a little nervous, when this whole pandemic started and we had to shut down because of the government mandate (a full week after pretty much every other store in the neighborhood had closed voluntarily), there was a bit more entitled outrage than i’d expected, customers declaring “well, i think books ARE essential!” and “what am i supposed to READ while i’m self-isolating??” kind of forgetting to make that one empathetic leap and realize that the sad little bookseller you’re talking to should also be self-isolating instead of braving the subway to get to work, when—again—most of the city is already shut down. and while i admit it’s an appealing vision of quarantine: cooped up all day reading, making daily trips literally right downstairs to the book shop to buy another before retreating back up to your safety-cave, i do not get paid nearly enough to be your angel in the ‘ronastorm. nor to live directly upstairs from a bookstore.
speaking of the subway, because this mess of a review is already over and forgotten as far as i’m concerned—i was reading this book on the subway platform (way back in the good old days), and as i was getting onto the train, a woman asked me if i was enjoying it, to which i replied “so far, yes!” and it turns out she had gone to school with the author and we had a lovely chat, and just like the characters in this book, lives intertwined.
that story sounds like a dream i had, what with all the “talking to a stranger” and “being closer than six feet to a person,” and this “subway” business. actually, the subway is more than a dream right now. it is a nightmare.
this is what those richy richers wanted me to risk my health on, cross-boroughing so they could buy a copy of Bel Canto or whatever.
the monsters.
* besides lily/the ghost of lily—which, if you aren’t picturing this lillian, you’re definitely doing it wrong
come to my blog!
conell’s debut is a contemporary spin on the upstairs/downstairs trope; a novel set in an upscale upper west side co-op where, over the course of a single day, the tensions resulting from several small conflicts between the building’s residents and martin, its super, will escalate from “simmering” to “explosively boiling over everywhere,” culminating in a class-clash confrontation on the building’s rooftop, one many years in the making. <—the confrontation. but maybe also the rooftop, who knows?
recently returned to her parents’ nest after a breakup, martin’s 24-year-old daughter ruby is unemployed, deeply in debt, and—her university background in art history with a specialization in dioramas—professionally adrift.
throughout her childhood, ruby roamed freely between her family’s tiny basement apartment nestled in with the other rough working parts of the building all the way up to her best friend caroline’s penthouse, stopping somewhere in the middle to visit with the delightfully marxist lily, who dispensed wisdom and sass from her rent-controlled apartment until her death. crossing the upstairs/downstairs divide—literally and figuratively—for so long has given ruby loyalties to both sides, left her influenced by both ‘worlds,’ yet she’s unable to belong to or really be understood by either of ‘em.
ruby’s always had a weirdish proximal relationship to wealth—her father’s job afforded her the opportunity to live in a nice neighborhood and a fancy building whose tenants depended on him to fix a thing or unclog a thing, all the while politely pretending to ignore their class differences with great shows of faux-deference or camaraderie. being friends with caroline also blurred some lines, and ruby’s grown up aware of but not fully appreciating the gulf o’economic disparity between the tenants and her family, socializing and dating within a rarified circle of trust fund kids cushioned by their family wealth, enjoying her careless college (and then post-college) years killing time as a barista, realizing too late how precarious her financial situation is.
there’s a real disconnect here between the wealthy and the working; tenants who are well-off and want to be seen as above it all; cheerfully indulgent and overfamiliar with ‘the help,’ but also clueless enough to think it’s appropriate to pay for services with starbucks gift cards, to make unreasonable demands, to subtly exert power while grinning like a buddy. there’s a similar disconnect between caroline and ruby; this kind of impasse where, despite their friendship, caroline’s life of unexamined privilege prevents her from understanding ruby’s reality—for example, that unpaid internships are an unimaginable luxury for people living hand-to-mouth.
the selling point of this book* is the relationship between martin and ruby—a man and his adult daughter who love each other but have wildly different personalities and spend the whole day struggling to communicate, wanting to feel valued by the other but mostly feeling hurt and misunderstood. their love is clumsy and messy and heartbreakingly real.
martin’s discomfort with ruby began when she started hanging out with caroline, and when she went off to school …he had most feared that she would start to behave like the tenants in the building. he’s gruff with her now because he’s scared for her—about what might happen to her if she doesn’t start taking her life and her career seriously.
At least Ruby was showing more signs of shame than she had last week. “I’m not your human daughter anymore,” she had said to Martin and Debra as she moved back in, dragging old grocery bags full of clothes through the door. “It turns out you birthed a living, breathing think piece. The failure to launch millennial blah-dee-blah.” She had looked expectantly at her parents, but neither one of them had laughed. Her words had sounded rehearsed to Martin. Bravado paired with self-deprecation—was this all her education had taught her?
he’s frustrated by ruby’s casual attitude to figuring out her next steps—resurfacing his fears that she’s become too influenced by caroline and her wealthy friends, who—unlike ruby—can afford to take a leisurely approach to life.
ruby’s got her own goals, though, and she’s more clear-eyed about the upstairs people than her father realizes, but she doesn’t actually grasp how tenuous martin’s position is, how superficial the tenants’ magnanimity, how intricate the social game that keeps everyone happy, and how easily it can all topple down.
anyway, tonight caroline’s having one of her epic parties, the ones that tend to, despite martin’s admonitions, spill out onto the rooftop. should be fun!
i enjoyed this one—it has great character work and it’s a coolheaded look at the class divide in nyfc; in the very neighborhood where i work my itty-bitty retail job selling books to people who…can afford a lot of books. and while the customers are the most pleasant i’ve encountered—effortlessly polite and patient to an extent that it makes me a little nervous, when this whole pandemic started and we had to shut down because of the government mandate (a full week after pretty much every other store in the neighborhood had closed voluntarily), there was a bit more entitled outrage than i’d expected, customers declaring “well, i think books ARE essential!” and “what am i supposed to READ while i’m self-isolating??” kind of forgetting to make that one empathetic leap and realize that the sad little bookseller you’re talking to should also be self-isolating instead of braving the subway to get to work, when—again—most of the city is already shut down. and while i admit it’s an appealing vision of quarantine: cooped up all day reading, making daily trips literally right downstairs to the book shop to buy another before retreating back up to your safety-cave, i do not get paid nearly enough to be your angel in the ‘ronastorm. nor to live directly upstairs from a bookstore.
speaking of the subway, because this mess of a review is already over and forgotten as far as i’m concerned—i was reading this book on the subway platform (way back in the good old days), and as i was getting onto the train, a woman asked me if i was enjoying it, to which i replied “so far, yes!” and it turns out she had gone to school with the author and we had a lovely chat, and just like the characters in this book, lives intertwined.
that story sounds like a dream i had, what with all the “talking to a stranger” and “being closer than six feet to a person,” and this “subway” business. actually, the subway is more than a dream right now. it is a nightmare.
this is what those richy richers wanted me to risk my health on, cross-boroughing so they could buy a copy of Bel Canto or whatever.
the monsters.
* besides lily/the ghost of lily—which, if you aren’t picturing this lillian, you’re definitely doing it wrong
come to my blog!
February 18, 2022
3.5 stars
Martin has been the super in a luxury apartment building on New York's Upper West Side for 25 years.
The perks of the job include a basement apartment, where Martin and his wife Debra raised their daughter Ruby.
Martin and his family got by, but young Ruby was well aware of the difference between herself and her best friend Caroline, whose wealthy family lived in apartment 6A.
Unlike Ruby, Caroline got new playthings all the time, and Ruby was always leaving 6A with borrowed stuff, like expensive American Girl dolls.
In addition, Caroline's parents gave Ruby books on animals and ecosystems and history and famous artists, and tried to make sure she had enrichment opportunities. Nevertheless, it's hard to always be the 'poor little girl downstairs', and - though Ruby was appreciative - she grew up with a sense of resentment.
Now Ruby is a 24-year-old college graduate with an art degree, but she still isn't doing well.
Ruby has lost her job as a barista, has been dumped by her rich do-gooder boyfriend, and is burdened with massive debts from school loans. Thus Ruby is back in her parents' basement nest. This chagrins Ruby's father Martin, who - being middle-aged, graying, and exhausted from his job - wants to live alone with his librarian wife Debra.
The book is essentially a day in the life of Martin and Ruby, who - though they're father and daughter - are nothing alike.
Martin meditates to relax, bird watches in Central Park for pleasure, and takes his job very seriously. Martin is always at the beck and call of rich tenants, who phone him to kill waterbugs, trap rats, clean drains, unstick doors, unclog toilets, change light bulbs, chase away vagrants, knock down pigeon nests, etc.
Martin is also the one to call the firemen, the plumbers, and the bedbug guy, and he's the middleman between tenants who are renovating their homes and contractors - who don't always speak English. While doing all this Martin must kowtow to the residents, because tenant complaints would get him fired and thrown out of his apartment.
For her part Ruby moons around and thinks about making dioramas, which she'd like to do as a professional artist.
Ruby has loved dioramas since visiting The Museum of Natural History as a child.....
.....and she once stole a library book on the subject from upstairs neighbor Lily - who was a sometimes babysitter and sort of 'honorary grandmother.'
Though Ruby wants to be an artist she's never even taken an art internship, and always worked summers in coffee bars. After graduating college, Ruby once again took a job as a barista, and she seems to lack the ambition to REALLY get ahead, even though she's encouraged by her family and friends.
By contrast Ruby's childhood friend Caroline, who now lives in her parents' newly built penthouse apartment, IS a working artist.
Wanting to make a statement about wasteful disposables, Caroline started to sculpt things like paper plates and sporks. Ironically, Caroline's marble sporks are now the 'in thing' among the rich and famous.
Ruby can't help but be resentful, and is especially annoyed because Caroline can coast on her parents' money - unlike Ruby - who has to take ANY job to pay back crushing loans.
On the day highlighted in the story, Ruby has an important employment opportunity. Through Caroline's connections, Ruby has a job interview at the Museum of Natural History, which she often visits to see the blue whale.
A position at the museum would be Ruby's ideal job, and she fantasizes about crafting dioramas based on her experiences and interests. The upcoming interview softens Ruby's feelings toward Caroline, and Ruby consents to attend Caroline's party that evening, where she'll meet the hostess's rich and successful friends.
Martin and Ruby are a father and daughter who love each other, but have a testy relationship. This is heightened by the fact that mom Debra - who's the family peacemaker - goes off for a weekend professional conference. Martin and Ruby grate against each other and get into spats, and Ruby is especially angry when Martin chases away a homeless woman sleeping near the building's entrance.
To me Ruby comes across as well-meaning but clueless, childish, and selfish - and her behavior gets increasingly outrageous as the day progresses.
Martin, on the other hand, is nervous, anxious and barely holding up. His bent back, greasy face, dirty fingernails, sweat-stained clothes, desperate bouts of meditation, resentment of the building's residents, and auditory hallucinations of deceased tenant Lily - who he found dead on the toilet - seem to bode ill. And Martin's disagreements with Ruby just make everything worse.
In addition to presenting an interesting character study, the story addresses the contrast between the middle-class and upper-class in a hoity-toity Manhattan neighborhood with insight and humor. A good debut novel from author Lee Conell.
You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot....
July 30, 2020
I really wanted to like this book but it was a struggle to finish. It picked up a bit in the last third of the story but ultimately I just wanted it to be over. All of the characters annoyed me.
September 16, 2020
The Party Upstairs explores the differences between lower and upper class, specifically in New York City. The upstairs versus downstairs approach.The book follows Ruby and her father Martin, who serves the tenants in the apartment building that they live in. Ruby's best friend Caroline lives upstairs in the penthouse while Ruby and her father live downstairs.
Exploring a father-daughter relationship as well as socioeconomic status and privilege could have made for an interesting story. The gap between the working class and the upper class was fairly large as they are quite disconnected from each other. I wasn't a fan of Martin at all and Ruby has a bit of growth but overall, I just didn’t care much for these characters. I thought we would be given more insight on privilege and relationships but I was just extremely bored unfortunately.
My other problem is that the chapters were too long but this is just a personal preference of mine. Not only that but it just made the rambling even more extraneous than it already is. This wasn’t for me but if it seems like something that might interest I would say to go for it as there are a ton of raving review.
Thank you to Netgalley and to the publisher for sending me an arc of this book!
Exploring a father-daughter relationship as well as socioeconomic status and privilege could have made for an interesting story. The gap between the working class and the upper class was fairly large as they are quite disconnected from each other. I wasn't a fan of Martin at all and Ruby has a bit of growth but overall, I just didn’t care much for these characters. I thought we would be given more insight on privilege and relationships but I was just extremely bored unfortunately.
My other problem is that the chapters were too long but this is just a personal preference of mine. Not only that but it just made the rambling even more extraneous than it already is. This wasn’t for me but if it seems like something that might interest I would say to go for it as there are a ton of raving review.
Thank you to Netgalley and to the publisher for sending me an arc of this book!
June 28, 2020
"Maybe between parents and their grown children this was normal--this little shared universe of unsaid things, largely made up of what you didn't want to talk about."
Party? What party? I must confess that this book fell well below my expectations. Dad (Martin) and daughter (Ruby) are likable enough. The story of the day of the party is told from both POVs. What I liked: the setting in Manhattan, the use of the diorama as a narrative tool, the relationship between Martin and Ruby, and the fact that Mom (Debra) was a librarian. Debra was my favorite character. This is a debut novel, so I am glad I gave it a try. Conell tends to pack ideas into super-long sentences. At one point, a sentence took up an entire page. That style of writing made for slower reading -- sometimes I had to reread as I lost focus. It was also disappointing that a dead character (Lily) got so much exposure while Lily's living, homeless, trespassing cousin (Evie) was unaccounted for much of the narrative. This would be a great title to hand to fans of Anna Quindlen as I was reminded of her latest,"Alternate Sides," when reading this new release.
Thank you to Penguin and Edelweiss for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.
Party? What party? I must confess that this book fell well below my expectations. Dad (Martin) and daughter (Ruby) are likable enough. The story of the day of the party is told from both POVs. What I liked: the setting in Manhattan, the use of the diorama as a narrative tool, the relationship between Martin and Ruby, and the fact that Mom (Debra) was a librarian. Debra was my favorite character. This is a debut novel, so I am glad I gave it a try. Conell tends to pack ideas into super-long sentences. At one point, a sentence took up an entire page. That style of writing made for slower reading -- sometimes I had to reread as I lost focus. It was also disappointing that a dead character (Lily) got so much exposure while Lily's living, homeless, trespassing cousin (Evie) was unaccounted for much of the narrative. This would be a great title to hand to fans of Anna Quindlen as I was reminded of her latest,"Alternate Sides," when reading this new release.
Thank you to Penguin and Edelweiss for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.
December 18, 2021
This story started off well, but I expected there to be something interesting to happen in the story. While the book did discuss some important topics like privilege and class, I couldn't bring myself to care at all about these characters. I really wanted to like this book, but ultimately I was just too bored to care about anything in the book and was just wanted to be done with it.
October 12, 2020
You know how they say if you have a negative run in with one person in a day, they’re the jerk, but if you have a negative run in with two people in a day, you’re the jerk?
I can’t stop thinking about the above statement as it relates to protagonist Martin, the whiny, put upon super in an affluent building in Manhattan whose possibly legitimate gripes about his work and the tenants he serves are all devalued by his curmudgeonly, self-pitying tendency to view people merely asking him to do his job as some sort of personal affront.
Nobody likes a whiner (including other whiners), which is perhaps why he and his daughter have a somewhat contentious relationship. Ruby has just moved back home after failing to achieve financial stability post-college, and though she has more personality and is notably less obnoxious than her father, she still drips with an irritating combination of sanctimony and lazy helplessness.
The author was clearly trying to create a modern upstairs/downstairs vibe, Ruby and her father contrasting with the tenants of the building, but it’s Martin and Ruby who come off looking more like snobs. If the tenants display the flippant obliviousness and entitlement of the rich, Ruby and Martin far outpace then in their demonstration of the bitterness and hostility of the poor.
This is, at its heart, a character study. Which is kind of a rough go when the principal characters are whiny, lazy, and self-pitying. Ruby, at least, has a semi-redemptive story arc. In the end, the reader begins to root for her and perhaps even like her. Martin, sadly, never gets there. He accepts rather than evolves, and it’s one more deeply unappealing thing about him.
The pacing of the book is good, and it has some memorably humorous minor plot points, but it’s tough to get past the deeply unlikable and unsympathetic protagonist.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
I can’t stop thinking about the above statement as it relates to protagonist Martin, the whiny, put upon super in an affluent building in Manhattan whose possibly legitimate gripes about his work and the tenants he serves are all devalued by his curmudgeonly, self-pitying tendency to view people merely asking him to do his job as some sort of personal affront.
Nobody likes a whiner (including other whiners), which is perhaps why he and his daughter have a somewhat contentious relationship. Ruby has just moved back home after failing to achieve financial stability post-college, and though she has more personality and is notably less obnoxious than her father, she still drips with an irritating combination of sanctimony and lazy helplessness.
The author was clearly trying to create a modern upstairs/downstairs vibe, Ruby and her father contrasting with the tenants of the building, but it’s Martin and Ruby who come off looking more like snobs. If the tenants display the flippant obliviousness and entitlement of the rich, Ruby and Martin far outpace then in their demonstration of the bitterness and hostility of the poor.
This is, at its heart, a character study. Which is kind of a rough go when the principal characters are whiny, lazy, and self-pitying. Ruby, at least, has a semi-redemptive story arc. In the end, the reader begins to root for her and perhaps even like her. Martin, sadly, never gets there. He accepts rather than evolves, and it’s one more deeply unappealing thing about him.
The pacing of the book is good, and it has some memorably humorous minor plot points, but it’s tough to get past the deeply unlikable and unsympathetic protagonist.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
June 5, 2020
I tried to like this book, tried to find something in it to justify the praise it has garnered, but in the end, I just did not connect with the story, and all of the characters were unlikable, self-centered, and in some cases so annoyingly navel-gazing it was almost painful to read. Nothing much happens in this book, and there are too many pages of what feel like asides, which go nowhere, and do nothing to illuminate or move the plot forward in a constructive way.
May 6, 2020
Having some trauma was called being alive.~ from The Party Upstairs by Lee Conell
In one day, the lives of the residents of a New York City apartment building are forever changed.
Caroline lived in the penthouse and had fancy dolls and a beautiful view and a distant, unreliable, father.
The superintendent's daughter Ruby grew up in the basement apartment down the hall from the garbage and laundry and boiler rooms.
Caroline and Ruby played dolls and make-believe as kids. They both studied art in college and graduated during the recession in 2008.
Caroline is supported by her parents as she creates marble sporks.
Ruby must support herself and takes the only job available, working in a coffee shop, her childhood dream of creating dioramas on hold.
When Ruby's boyfriend decides she isn't ambitious enough, they part ways and Ruby has nowhere to go but home, knowing her dad Martin will fume over the waste of an expensive education.
I graduated in 1978 with an English major. Jobs were scarce and I had to work at a department store before 'stepping up' to customer service in insurance and then moving into sales. Our son graduated in 2008 with a creative writing major. It was two years before he got a job, $9/hr work from home in customer service. Ten years later, he is doing well as a data analyst. We do what we have to do. Ruby's predicament resonated with me!
What would Martin's dream job be? He never had one. He had jobs for getting by.~ from The Party Upstairs by Lee Conell
Martin is hard working, stressed, and frankly, bitter. He uses meditation to tamp down the stress. But he is on-call 24-7, asked to do all the dirty jobs. Pull out hair clogs in the bathroom drain, killing the pigeons that nest on the window ledges, kicking the homeless out of the hallway. He hates what he does, but he does it to keep his home. It reminded my of my father-in-law; his dad died of TB when he was a boy and he could not afford college. He worked for the CCC to support his mom. He ended up in a job at Buick in Flint in scheduling. He hated his job. But he supported three boys through college.
Hard times--depression, recession, natural disaster, pandemic--hit most of us in ways that the wealthy don't experience.
People believe they are friendly and supportive with their gifts of Starbucks and MetroCard gift cards, but who needs coffee house gift cards when you are living in a windowless basement apartment with a discarded 1980s couch with cows on it and your bed is a repurposed elevator box?
It reminded me of all the Christmas cookies we received over the years from parishioners. We needed cold, hard cash, not calories. We wanted parsonage upgrades so I could fit a turkey in the wall oven or a replacement for the kitchen floor that permanently stained when our son dropped a strawberry.
There is nothing worse than living in provided housing, dependent on your job performance and keeping people happy, knowing at any time you could be asked to leave. Knowing how it would disrupt your family's life if you fail.
The tenants pretend to be friends with the super and his family. Noblesse oblige is alive and well. The people upstairs realize their power.
And it is making Martin crazy.
Tensions mount between Martin and Ruby, each desperately seeking the other's approval. They both go a little crazy. Bad things happen.
In the end, Ruby and Martin discover that the worst that can happen can lead to a better life.
The Party Upstairs pries open the doors to reveal the class divide, how the poor hobble themselves to unfulfilled lives out of fear. It is the story of breaking free and allowing oneself to make life choices that may not align with predominate values.
I was given a free ebook by the publisher through Edelweiss. My review is fair and unbiased.
In one day, the lives of the residents of a New York City apartment building are forever changed.
Caroline lived in the penthouse and had fancy dolls and a beautiful view and a distant, unreliable, father.
The superintendent's daughter Ruby grew up in the basement apartment down the hall from the garbage and laundry and boiler rooms.
Caroline and Ruby played dolls and make-believe as kids. They both studied art in college and graduated during the recession in 2008.
Caroline is supported by her parents as she creates marble sporks.
Ruby must support herself and takes the only job available, working in a coffee shop, her childhood dream of creating dioramas on hold.
When Ruby's boyfriend decides she isn't ambitious enough, they part ways and Ruby has nowhere to go but home, knowing her dad Martin will fume over the waste of an expensive education.
I graduated in 1978 with an English major. Jobs were scarce and I had to work at a department store before 'stepping up' to customer service in insurance and then moving into sales. Our son graduated in 2008 with a creative writing major. It was two years before he got a job, $9/hr work from home in customer service. Ten years later, he is doing well as a data analyst. We do what we have to do. Ruby's predicament resonated with me!
What would Martin's dream job be? He never had one. He had jobs for getting by.~ from The Party Upstairs by Lee Conell
Martin is hard working, stressed, and frankly, bitter. He uses meditation to tamp down the stress. But he is on-call 24-7, asked to do all the dirty jobs. Pull out hair clogs in the bathroom drain, killing the pigeons that nest on the window ledges, kicking the homeless out of the hallway. He hates what he does, but he does it to keep his home. It reminded my of my father-in-law; his dad died of TB when he was a boy and he could not afford college. He worked for the CCC to support his mom. He ended up in a job at Buick in Flint in scheduling. He hated his job. But he supported three boys through college.
Hard times--depression, recession, natural disaster, pandemic--hit most of us in ways that the wealthy don't experience.
People believe they are friendly and supportive with their gifts of Starbucks and MetroCard gift cards, but who needs coffee house gift cards when you are living in a windowless basement apartment with a discarded 1980s couch with cows on it and your bed is a repurposed elevator box?
It reminded me of all the Christmas cookies we received over the years from parishioners. We needed cold, hard cash, not calories. We wanted parsonage upgrades so I could fit a turkey in the wall oven or a replacement for the kitchen floor that permanently stained when our son dropped a strawberry.
There is nothing worse than living in provided housing, dependent on your job performance and keeping people happy, knowing at any time you could be asked to leave. Knowing how it would disrupt your family's life if you fail.
The tenants pretend to be friends with the super and his family. Noblesse oblige is alive and well. The people upstairs realize their power.
And it is making Martin crazy.
Tensions mount between Martin and Ruby, each desperately seeking the other's approval. They both go a little crazy. Bad things happen.
In the end, Ruby and Martin discover that the worst that can happen can lead to a better life.
The Party Upstairs pries open the doors to reveal the class divide, how the poor hobble themselves to unfulfilled lives out of fear. It is the story of breaking free and allowing oneself to make life choices that may not align with predominate values.
I was given a free ebook by the publisher through Edelweiss. My review is fair and unbiased.
June 1, 2020
I received a copy of this from Netgalley in exchange for a review.
Parasite in a New York apartment building! Conell gives us a class analysis told through the lens of Martin, the super who lives in the basement, and his daughter Ruby, who has moved back in with her parents. The book takes place over the course of a single day in which Martin is haunted by the voice of a dead, anti-capitalist tenant, and Ruby becomes aware of the weight of the disparity between herself and her longtime friend Caroline, who lives in the penthouse. Ruby's actions throughout the day mostly made me cringe but they were also entertaining, especially in retrospect, and I loved Martin and his quest for successful meditation and lack of delusion about his place in the scheme of the apartment building.
Parasite in a New York apartment building! Conell gives us a class analysis told through the lens of Martin, the super who lives in the basement, and his daughter Ruby, who has moved back in with her parents. The book takes place over the course of a single day in which Martin is haunted by the voice of a dead, anti-capitalist tenant, and Ruby becomes aware of the weight of the disparity between herself and her longtime friend Caroline, who lives in the penthouse. Ruby's actions throughout the day mostly made me cringe but they were also entertaining, especially in retrospect, and I loved Martin and his quest for successful meditation and lack of delusion about his place in the scheme of the apartment building.
September 28, 2020
Beautiful writing ultimately cannot save a plot cobbled together from boring flashbacks and characters navel gazing on their endless grievances. A novel about class differences where all the rich people are immoral monsters (of course!) and all the poor people are...also extremely unlikable entitled whiners who apparently do nothing all day but think about how unfair it is that they don't have a trust fund. This could have been so much better if Conell had tried to make people on both sides of the class divide real sympathetic humans, instead of cardboard cutouts defined by their bank account. With no one to root for and nothing new to say, this book left me as aggrieved and misanthropic as its characters.
August 11, 2020
The main character Ruby drove me crazy. The dress, shoes and rhinoceros head were all so far-fetched. Martin was a far more interesting character-the manner is which he interacted with the varied tenants of his building demonstrated a mature almost worn down individual.
January 6, 2021
*Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a free e-copy in exchange for an honest review!*
The blurb and cover for this book was one that really caught my eye. Maybe it's being in a college city for the past couple of years, but gentrification has become a well-discussed issue and I thought this book's topic was right up my alley.
Essentially, The Party Upstairs follows Ruby, who is friends with someone much more privileged than she is — Caroline. After taking out student loans to go to college and still feeling far away from her dream job, Ruby has to move back home and experience the violence of class for herself as Caroline throws a luxurious party.
Ultimately, I felt as though the biggest barrier to enjoyment for me was the writing style, which was just a little too wordy and roundabout for me. I'm all for descriptions and tangents in writing when they tell us a little bit about a character's past or what a setting looks like, but when it gets to this point:
This went on for so long — a page, at least, and it just didn't feel like it added much to the story, to the characters, and felt more tedious to read than enjoyable, which it might've been had it been shorter.
It was the writing style that prevented me from connecting with the characters too — neither Martin, Caroline, nor Ruby were very likable and because of the writing style it was hard for me to really get a clear idea about what each character was like and to follow the character development.
For the plot, there's certainly something very interesting about a story that takes place within such a short period of time. It reminds me a bit of The Night Before by Wendy Walker: quick set-up, quick build-up, and quick unraveling. I think the plot was actually quite interesting for me in the last 30%, but I think it took too long to get there and by then I wasn't very invested in the characters.
Ultimately, I don't think this book was for me, though it had a lot of potential in its subject matter. People who are interested in class-based thrillers might want to give this a shot!
The blurb and cover for this book was one that really caught my eye. Maybe it's being in a college city for the past couple of years, but gentrification has become a well-discussed issue and I thought this book's topic was right up my alley.
Essentially, The Party Upstairs follows Ruby, who is friends with someone much more privileged than she is — Caroline. After taking out student loans to go to college and still feeling far away from her dream job, Ruby has to move back home and experience the violence of class for herself as Caroline throws a luxurious party.
Ultimately, I felt as though the biggest barrier to enjoyment for me was the writing style, which was just a little too wordy and roundabout for me. I'm all for descriptions and tangents in writing when they tell us a little bit about a character's past or what a setting looks like, but when it gets to this point:
"...the heat pipe in the living room thumped and he remembered how the woman in 4B had recently complained about the thumping coming from 5B, which was caused by the private tango lessons the woman in 5B was taking with the woman in 2C, who had recently divorced the man who had once lived in 7D and who had lost his job in advertising..."
This went on for so long — a page, at least, and it just didn't feel like it added much to the story, to the characters, and felt more tedious to read than enjoyable, which it might've been had it been shorter.
It was the writing style that prevented me from connecting with the characters too — neither Martin, Caroline, nor Ruby were very likable and because of the writing style it was hard for me to really get a clear idea about what each character was like and to follow the character development.
For the plot, there's certainly something very interesting about a story that takes place within such a short period of time. It reminds me a bit of The Night Before by Wendy Walker: quick set-up, quick build-up, and quick unraveling. I think the plot was actually quite interesting for me in the last 30%, but I think it took too long to get there and by then I wasn't very invested in the characters.
Ultimately, I don't think this book was for me, though it had a lot of potential in its subject matter. People who are interested in class-based thrillers might want to give this a shot!
June 30, 2020
As the building superintendent's daughter in a swanky NYC neighborhood, close to museums and parks, Ruby's life should be like Eloise's at the Plaza, right? Based on appearances, perhaps, but the reality is much darker than that. Caroline, now living in the penthouse, has been Ruby's lifelong friend, and though they have had their trials, they try to keep true to their friendship. Ruby is forced to move back into her parent's basement apartment after finding a liberal arts education does nothing for employment (her specialty — dioramas). Caroline, coming from the most privileged and abjectly ignorant of anything else despite having a long string of "causes," makes a serious miscalculation in setting up a job interview for Ruby, which goes south fast. Occurring in a single day, readers experience their strained relationship, an art shot with a rhino head, pigeon angst, quests for self-discovery, and family struggles, all set against the weirdly glorious and harsh backdrop of the NYC elite. I cheered for Ruby, her prison librarian mother, and salt-of-the-earth father all the way through. For fans of Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere or Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies.
August 9, 2020
The Party Upstairs is—complete with an art shot with a rhino head, pigeon angst, quests for self-discovery, and family struggles, all set against the weirdly glorious and harsh backdrop of the NYC elite—equal parts poignant, funny, relevant and reasonable. I rooted for Ruby (despite her weirdly proximal relationship to wealth), and prison librarian Debra, and salt-of-the-earth Martin, and delightfully marxist Lily. At the heart of Lee Conell's debut is Martin and Ruby's wholesome father-daughter bond—love that is clumsy and messy and heartbreakingly real.
July 1, 2020
maybe I'm a country girl, I found this very hard to relate to, the characters, the scenes, etc....
December 4, 2020
When I was applying to an elite yet funky liberal arts college in New York State as a senior in high school, I went for a campus tour with my parents. Our guide was an ethereal, nose-ringed nymph with close-cropped hair and a casual and confident manner. I was immediately smitten, but I could sense more skepticism from my parents. Our guide enthusiastically described her senior thesis--a temporally-limited, site-specific art project in a tree on campus--and when my dad asked her what she planned to do after graduation, she said that she was moving to San Francisco to work in a gallery there. When we drove away from this bucolic campus, my dad told me very seriously that after I graduated college, he and my mother would not be able to support me, that if I wanted to go to a glamorous and expensive city, I'd have to find a way to pay my rent there. He pointed out that it was likely that the tour guide, who seemed so hippie-ish describing her sylvan senior thesis, had parents' money facilitating her West Coast migrations. I had missed the financial implications of her plans altogether. Dad did not.
I relate this anecdote because this novel is basically about that dynamic. At the center of the novel is the relationship between Martin, the working-class dad who has been a super for an apartment building, hence obtaining free NYC housing for his family, for decades, and Ruby, the college-educated daughter who would sort-of like to be an artist and yet doesn't fully understand why she is under a mountain of debt (and struggling to conceptualize her dioramas) while her friend Caroline, who lives in the penthouse in the building, thrives and turns spork sculptures into decor for her parents' wealthy friends. The novel features the micro-divides of social class and its relationship to spending money, debt, and real estate. In a significant example, Caroline gets an interview for Ruby that turns out to be for an unpaid internship, and she is nonplussed to realize her friend is annoyed about it and doesn't plan to take the position.
Both families are Jewish, yet only Caroline and her family narrate their Holocaust history like a status symbol. Their position of privilege turns their ancestral suffering into something to be celebrated. Martin, by contrast, doesn't narrate his life with a long view; instead, he hears his humiliating daily actions narrated by a voice-over from his dear friend and dead tenant Lily who offers an unrelenting (and acccurate) critique of capitalism and his obeisance, which begins to fray over the course of the day that Conell narrates.
The interpersonal dynamics are believable and deeply felt, particularly the resentments between Martin and Ruby. Conell also makes connections between wealth and the displacement of living beings, the treatment of bodies as pests, which extends from the rats and pigeons to the homeless. The book is frequently funny and often moving. As a middle-class kid who went to an upper-class college (albeit not the one that I described in the opening anecdote), a lot of these subtle tensions between people who have cultural capital and people who have both kinds really spoke to me. I felt like the resolution of the plot and the themes got a little muddled. I'm not sure that Conell should have committed herself to the unity of telling the story all on a single day, and some of the more dramatic elements towards the end felt contrived.
That being said, Conell captures some of the intensity and troubles of long-standing friendships as well as parental aspirations, anger, and expectations.
I relate this anecdote because this novel is basically about that dynamic. At the center of the novel is the relationship between Martin, the working-class dad who has been a super for an apartment building, hence obtaining free NYC housing for his family, for decades, and Ruby, the college-educated daughter who would sort-of like to be an artist and yet doesn't fully understand why she is under a mountain of debt (and struggling to conceptualize her dioramas) while her friend Caroline, who lives in the penthouse in the building, thrives and turns spork sculptures into decor for her parents' wealthy friends. The novel features the micro-divides of social class and its relationship to spending money, debt, and real estate. In a significant example, Caroline gets an interview for Ruby that turns out to be for an unpaid internship, and she is nonplussed to realize her friend is annoyed about it and doesn't plan to take the position.
Both families are Jewish, yet only Caroline and her family narrate their Holocaust history like a status symbol. Their position of privilege turns their ancestral suffering into something to be celebrated. Martin, by contrast, doesn't narrate his life with a long view; instead, he hears his humiliating daily actions narrated by a voice-over from his dear friend and dead tenant Lily who offers an unrelenting (and acccurate) critique of capitalism and his obeisance, which begins to fray over the course of the day that Conell narrates.
The interpersonal dynamics are believable and deeply felt, particularly the resentments between Martin and Ruby. Conell also makes connections between wealth and the displacement of living beings, the treatment of bodies as pests, which extends from the rats and pigeons to the homeless. The book is frequently funny and often moving. As a middle-class kid who went to an upper-class college (albeit not the one that I described in the opening anecdote), a lot of these subtle tensions between people who have cultural capital and people who have both kinds really spoke to me. I felt like the resolution of the plot and the themes got a little muddled. I'm not sure that Conell should have committed herself to the unity of telling the story all on a single day, and some of the more dramatic elements towards the end felt contrived.
That being said, Conell captures some of the intensity and troubles of long-standing friendships as well as parental aspirations, anger, and expectations.
September 19, 2020
This is a book that I feel like may not find its correct audience because of the marketing copy. It’s not a thriller, but rather a literary look at what privilege means, the lines between the rich and the working class and the poor, and what it’s like to be a young professional today saddled with too many degrees and loans. Lovely, dark, and witty writing.
CW: sexual assault and victim-blaming, suicide ideation, animal cruelty (pigeon and rat killing)
CW: sexual assault and victim-blaming, suicide ideation, animal cruelty (pigeon and rat killing)
February 28, 2021
Am I the only person in America who has a vocabulary that doesn't include the "F" word? We are supposed to be a highly educated nation
but writers can't seem to try and be provocative with vulgarity.
A story of class warfare.
I liked that the story took place all in 1 day.
I didn't like ANY of the characters.
The writing was ok.
If she writes another book, maybe I'll read it.
but writers can't seem to try and be provocative with vulgarity.
A story of class warfare.
I liked that the story took place all in 1 day.
I didn't like ANY of the characters.
The writing was ok.
If she writes another book, maybe I'll read it.
August 14, 2020
4.5 but I'm rounding up because A) the overall average of this book is too low so I will do my part to buoy it and B) I love a book that has class inequality as a major theme. The writing is pretty impressive too.
May 19, 2020
I read this entire book and I was so bored with it.
July 26, 2020
A really good take on the modern class system. Ruby is the daughter of Martin, the super in a Manhattan apartment building. They live in the basement apartment while Ruby's best friend Caroline lives in the penthouse. While Ruby makes dioramas from shoeboxes, Caroline sculpts throwaway items, such as sporks, out of marble. And Martin is continually plagued by the petty complaints of the building's tenants. The rising tension makes it a real page turner. 4.5 stars.
August 30, 2020
24-year old college graduate and aspiring diorama artist (?) Ruby is forced to move back into the NYC basement apartment of a fancy building where she grew up with her maintenance man dad and librarian mom, after her boyfriend breaks up with her, and the coffee shop where she worked shuts down. It is there that she must grapple with the complicated friendship she has with Caroline, the trust fund baby residing in the penthouse of the same building.
Meanwhile, Ruby's father, Martin, has to grapple with his tenants / employee's numerous complaints about things like clogged drains, lost packages, burnt out light bulbs, pigeon poop on the rooftop, and homeless ladies in the lobby. Throughout out all this, he is being haunted by the ghost of one of his recently deceased anti-capitalist tenants, and just trying to get through one meditation session, without farting from his recently-discovered gluten allergy.
Such is life for the two protagonists of Lee Conell's The Party Upstairs . . .
This was an OK read, I guess. It had some insightful, if not necessarily novel, things to say about our class system, and specifically, the hypocritical tendency of some one-percenters to (1) treat those less financially fortunate than them as if they are some exotic species in need of saving; and (2) feel somehow morally superior, simply because they offer those more cash-strapped individuals payment for services rendered.
I enjoyed the circularity of the plot, and the way in which seemingly random details about pigeons, boiler room mishaps, museum dioramas, and confused wandering old ladies, all came together in the end, in a way that was somewhat satisfying. The novel took a while to get there though, by tossing in a lot of seemingly pointless flashbacks, meandering ruminations, and some more-bizarre-than-genuinely-funny plot twists along the way.
This was a fairly short and lean book that somehow was made to seem much longer by the many plot deviations, and stream of consciousness writing style mentioned above?
As another reviewer mentioned, if you want to experience a similarly-themed analysis of class warfare that really packs a punch, I highly recommend the movie Parasite. But this book will do fine, in a pinch . . .
Meanwhile, Ruby's father, Martin, has to grapple with his tenants / employee's numerous complaints about things like clogged drains, lost packages, burnt out light bulbs, pigeon poop on the rooftop, and homeless ladies in the lobby. Throughout out all this, he is being haunted by the ghost of one of his recently deceased anti-capitalist tenants, and just trying to get through one meditation session, without farting from his recently-discovered gluten allergy.
Such is life for the two protagonists of Lee Conell's The Party Upstairs . . .
This was an OK read, I guess. It had some insightful, if not necessarily novel, things to say about our class system, and specifically, the hypocritical tendency of some one-percenters to (1) treat those less financially fortunate than them as if they are some exotic species in need of saving; and (2) feel somehow morally superior, simply because they offer those more cash-strapped individuals payment for services rendered.
I enjoyed the circularity of the plot, and the way in which seemingly random details about pigeons, boiler room mishaps, museum dioramas, and confused wandering old ladies, all came together in the end, in a way that was somewhat satisfying. The novel took a while to get there though, by tossing in a lot of seemingly pointless flashbacks, meandering ruminations, and some more-bizarre-than-genuinely-funny plot twists along the way.
This was a fairly short and lean book that somehow was made to seem much longer by the many plot deviations, and stream of consciousness writing style mentioned above?
As another reviewer mentioned, if you want to experience a similarly-themed analysis of class warfare that really packs a punch, I highly recommend the movie Parasite. But this book will do fine, in a pinch . . .
October 8, 2020
Ruby grew up between worlds. Her father is the super for a Manhattan apartment building, one that started out full of rent-controlled apartments lived in by middle class tenants, but over time the building has become the residence of the wealthy and privileged. She and her parents have always lived in the basement apartment, but her best friend lives in the penthouse. Growing up with Caroline has meant art lessons and now an expensive degree she may never pay off. Her dream is to work on the dioramas in the Natural History Museum and her best friend has gotten her an interview. Caroline is also throwing a party that night in her father's penthouse.
Taking place over a single day, the novel follows Ruby and her father as they go through a day that will change everything. Lee Conell examines the often uncomfortable interchanges that take place between people when there's a significant financial disparity and in the spaces between employee/boss and friend. There's lots to be uncomfortable and sometimes angry about and Conell is willing to take the characters into awkward situations where no one emerges without fault.
Taking place over a single day, the novel follows Ruby and her father as they go through a day that will change everything. Lee Conell examines the often uncomfortable interchanges that take place between people when there's a significant financial disparity and in the spaces between employee/boss and friend. There's lots to be uncomfortable and sometimes angry about and Conell is willing to take the characters into awkward situations where no one emerges without fault.
April 1, 2021
This book takes place basically all in one day with some flashbacks throughout. There's not much dialogue. The narration is alternatively through a father and a daughter's point of view. Lots of internal exposition. Class divisions, the value of art and education, the uncertainty of young adulthood and retirement aged folks are the main themes.
This dragged a little, but hooked me right before the titular party and finished strongly. 3.5 stars rounded down cuz who keeps "an oldest friend" like Caroline?
This dragged a little, but hooked me right before the titular party and finished strongly. 3.5 stars rounded down cuz who keeps "an oldest friend" like Caroline?
November 22, 2020
Not sure why exactly I enjoyed this story. I’m more of a fan of stories with plots and a little bit of action. But I have enjoyed some books that were plotless like The Boston Girl. I think it was knowing two of the main characters thoughts so well, not necessarily people I would like, but very relatable. It felt very psychological. And there weren’t too many characters and no one had similar names.
March 1, 2020
I read an ARC of this book and was drawn to the unique cover. Although the novel is more literary than what I normally read, I did enjoy it. It took me a while to get through (while reading other things in between), but it is definitely worth the read and showcases the divide between social classes in New York City beautifully.
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