Visible City - Hardcover

Mirvis, Tova

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0544047745 ISBN 13: 9780544047747

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014

Synopsis

For fans of Meg Wolitzer and Allegra Goodman, an intimate and provocative novel about three couples whose paths intersect in their New York City neighborhood, forcing them all to weigh the comfort of stability against the costs of change.

Nina is a harried young mother who spends her evenings spying on the older couple across the street through her son’s Fisher-Price binoculars. She is drawn to their quiet contentment—reading on the couch, massaging each other’s feet—so unlike her own lonely, chaotic world of nursing and soothing and simply getting by. One night, through that same window, she spies a young couple in the throes of passion. Who are these people, and what happened to her symbol of domestic bliss?

In the coming weeks, Nina encounters the older couple, Leon and Claudia, their daughter Emma and her fiancé, and many others on the streets of her Upper West Side neighborhood, eroding the safe distance of her secret vigils. Soon anonymity gives way to different—and sometimes dangerous—forms of intimacy, and Nina and her neighbors each begin to question their own paths.

With enormous empathy and a keen observational eye, Tova Mirvis introduces a constellation of characters we all know: twenty-somethings unsure about commitments they haven’t yet made; thirty-somethings unsure about the ones they have; and sixty-somethings whose empty nest causes all sorts of doubt. Visible City invites us to examine those all-important forks in the road, and the conflict between desire and loyalty.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

“Read Visible City. Tova Mirvis’s graceful yet vigorous New York novel is about the half-inadvertent window-peeping that city life enables, and where it can lead.” —New York Magazine

After chaotic days of wrangling and soothing her young children, Nina spends her evenings spying on the quiet, contented older couple across the street. But one night, through her same window, she spies a young couple in the throes of passion. Who are these people, and what happened to her symbol of domestic happiness? Soon, Nina crosses paths with both couples on the streets of her Upper West Side neighborhood and, as anonymity gives way to different forms of intimacy, all begin to confront their own desires and disappointments. Shrewdly and artfully, Mirvis explores the boundaries between our own lives and the lives of others. From its lavish ghost subway stations to its hidden stained-glass windows, Visible City conjures a New York City teeming with buried treasures.
 
 “An utterly perfect, deeply moving evocation of contemporary Manhattan [that] reminded me of Paula Fox and Laurie Colwin, and also those master chroniclers of the privileged classes, Wharton and Fitzgerald . . . Brilliant.” —Joanna Smith Rakoff, Salon.com

“Mirvis’s meticulously choreographed novel surprises and moves us.” —New York Times Book Review
 
TOVA MIRVIS is the author of The Outside World and The Ladies Auxiliary, a national bestseller. Her essays have appeared in various anthologies and newspapers, and her fiction has been broadcast on NPR. She is a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fiction Fellowship and lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with her three children. 
 
Author photograph © Nina Subin

From the Inside Flap:

"A fascinating maze of a novel, following the intersecting lives of two New York families as they come together and fall apart. Gorgeously written and enormously wise on the subjects of art, ambition, parenting, betrayal, and what it means to take care of the ones you love."
—Lauren Grodstein, author of A Friend of the Family

Nina spends her evenings spying on the older couple across the street through her young son's Fischer Price binoculars. She is drawn to their quiet contentment—reading on the couch, massaging each other's feet—so unlike her own lonely, chaotic world of tending and soothing her children. One night, through that same window, she spies a young couple in the throes of passion. Who are these young people, and what happened to her symbol of domestic happiness?

In the coming weeks, Nina encounters both the older couple and the young lovers on the streets of her neighborhood, and as anonymity gives way to different—and sometimes dangerous—forms of intimacy, they all begin to question their own paths. With enormous empathy and a keen observational eye, Mirvis introduces a constellation of characters we all know: twenty-somethings unsure about commitments they haven’t yet made; thirty-somethings unsure about the ones they have; and sixty-somethings whose empty nest summons regret and doubt.

From its lavish ghost subway stations to its hidden stained glass windows, Visible City conjures a New York teeming with buried treasures, casualties of a metropolis always in flux; not unlike its inhabitants, who must confront their own hidden desires and, eventually, weigh the comforts of stability against the urge for change.

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0544047745
• ISBN 13: 9780544047747
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256