Triburbia
A Novel
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3.8 • 51 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
“Pitch-perfect, dry, and smart, this is a vivid portrait of New York, our lives, our loves, and our hearts.” — Susan Orlean, author of Rin Tin Tin and The Orchid Thief
“I loved Triburbia, loved dropping in on these wonderful characters with their outsized appetites and ambitions, the lithe and lively prose, the way the book swirls in and out of these lives and maps perfectly a place and a moment in time. Most of all, though, I loved Karl Taro Greenfeld’s deft satirical touch, the searing empathy with which he offers up his privileged, damaged people to the world.” — Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins
Karl Taro Greenfeld, author of the acclaimed memoir Boy Alone, delivers a remarkable first novel about a group of families in a fashionable Manhattan neighborhood wrestling with the dark realities of their lives.
Thrown together by circumstance, six fathers—a sound engineer, a sculptor, a film producer, a chef, a memoirist, a gangster—meet each morning at a local Tribeca coffee shop after walking their children to their exclusive school. Over the course of a single school year, we are privy to their secrets, passions, and hopes, and learn of their dreams deferred as they confront harsh realities about ambition, wealth, and sex. And we meet their wives and children, who together with these men are discovering the hard truths and welcome surprises that accompany family, marriage, and real estate at midlife.
Fascinatingly layered and multidimensional, these linked stories, arranged like puzzle pieces, create a powerful portrait of unlikely friends and their neighborhood in transition. Striking chords that range from haunting and heartbreaking to darkly funny and deeply poignant, Triburbia marks the start of a brilliant literary career.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this absorbing first novel, Greenfeld (Boy Alone, a memoir) brings to life the capacious lofts, self-involved chefs, and occasional rent control holdouts of Manhattan's affluent TriBeCa neighborhood (home to Robert De Niro and Jay-Z, among other celebs). Each chapter (titled by local addresses, such as 145 Greenwich, 65 Hudson, and 47 Lispenard) is told from the perspective of a different local character, from the fabulously affluent to the rent control holdouts. Their lives intersect and overlap because their children attend the same school, they're sleeping with one another's spouses, or, in Sadie's case, because she's the babysitter or, in Cooper's case, because she's queen of the fourth grade. Greenfeld's chameleon-like ease for shifting characters refracts through the distinct language of thought, the emotional underpinnings of choices made, and the ways in which every life feels both unique and familiar, and his female characters are as authentic, if not more so, than the men. The result is a webby world in which details blend, repeat, and sometimes fade, exactly like running into a neighbor at the corner deli and not quite remembering who his brother is or with whom he may have had an affair. Early on, the book feels precariously provincial beholden to the local jargon of real estate, gourmet food, and the distinctively insane obstacles of New York City public schools. And empathy for rich people, no matter how flawed, can be a tough sell these days. Ultimately, though, Greenfeld wields his critiques, humor, and observations to create a compelling little universe that will matter even to outsiders who don't know that Lispenard Street will never be as glamorous as Greenwhich St.
Customer Reviews
Started off well, then devolved into banality
I liked the beginning, which was full of the satirical references one would expect of the only Manhattan neighborhood to house soccer moms. But as the story evolved each character seemed progressively less interesting to the point where you don't really give a crap about the perverse ways their lives end up interconnecting.