A memoir of self-discovery and the dilemma of connection in our time, Vivian Gornick's The Odd Woman and the City explores the rhythms, chance encounters, and ever-changing friendships of urban life that forge the sensibility of a fiercely independent woman who has lived out her conflicts, not her fantasies, in a city (New York) that has done the same.
It's the late 1970s. Aging sirens, dreamers, eccentrics and connivers live in a small residential hotel on the Upper West Side. Their tiny suites, separated by cracked plaster walls, are paved with golden stories, woven together in this novel of funny, intimate moments between neighbors. Sonia Pilcer's The Last Hotel reminds us of how New York was once a grittier, poorer city, full of warmth and character. It's captured here with the same perfect pitch that has informed Sonia Pilcer's previous work, which the New York Times described as "tough and sweet... touchingly truthful."
New York City, NY; NYC