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This book is a wonderful surprise - a favorite this year.

Curiosity engrossed in the book. It promised a deep dive into groceries. I didn’t know it would be this deep. Compelling Esquire-style profiles of real characters.

“We are primed to expect fictional characters to change, often for the better. But for Alam, who writes about his characters as if he were a medical student dissecting a cadaver, psychological depth is not the point. He has an interior barometer exquisitely calibrated to signifiers of social class: fashion houses, just-trendy-enough restaurants, interiors detailed with the loving eye of a copywriter …” -NYRB

The start of this book is a sharp description of the ride out East from Manhattan. Chilling use of extended metaphor and building a mood.

Such an amazing book. Why doesn’t it get more buzz?

U fortunately I don’t think this book is a novel. More a chronological recitation of facts. Was hoping for something more evocative of David Hickey.

Gorgeous, approachable and finely tuned book. I am so inspired that this is a first novel.

The writing is a bit difficult or dry at points, but the twist at the end of furniture maker section is fascinating.

Fascinating how he recounts such rich emotion and specific events in his college years, writing 20+ years later. I don't have this kind of memory. And not being out then honestly means I think I have tried not to remember some of it.