A review by lonestarwords
An Honest Living by Dwyer Murphy
medium-paced
3.0
Young people are always going to move to New York. People in their 20s from all over the goddamn world want to meet one another. They want to drink and fight and ... pick up coffee and the paper on the way to work. They want roof decks and balconies and they'll take fire escapes to start, same as we did.
An Honest Living
Dwyer Murphy
•
Ok so this is what kept me reading this very strange book - that it does NYC very well. It is also a bookish story - we have a former attorney turned private investigator who is hired to track down a missing antiquarian bookseller. He becomes embroiled in what I would call a caper, a "who done it" between two women, one who is prize winning novelist, one the wife of the bookseller.
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This was one wonky book, but I was lured in by both the setting and the fact that the narrator is the same person who read Wellness and The Nix, both of which were August favorites.
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Had I read this on the page, I would probably not have understood the intended tone - this is a noir spoof (how's that for niche) and listening to it was like watching an old black and white movie- it just felt campy. The dialogue is awkward (probably by design) and the story reads like a scene out of Rear Window, which makes sense because the author references it many times.
•
This definitely needs to find its proper audience and I will say, for something light and offbeat, it wasn't terrible. But you have to be in the mood for a book like this. I will say that the bookish theme is well done, with abundant references to book collecting, old New York libraries, Edith Wharton, Mark Twain, Dickens... it's the main story. So, combine that with a very well executed NYC vibe and it kept me interested.
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Thank you @prhaudio for my copy!
An Honest Living
Dwyer Murphy
•
Ok so this is what kept me reading this very strange book - that it does NYC very well. It is also a bookish story - we have a former attorney turned private investigator who is hired to track down a missing antiquarian bookseller. He becomes embroiled in what I would call a caper, a "who done it" between two women, one who is prize winning novelist, one the wife of the bookseller.
•
This was one wonky book, but I was lured in by both the setting and the fact that the narrator is the same person who read Wellness and The Nix, both of which were August favorites.
•
Had I read this on the page, I would probably not have understood the intended tone - this is a noir spoof (how's that for niche) and listening to it was like watching an old black and white movie- it just felt campy. The dialogue is awkward (probably by design) and the story reads like a scene out of Rear Window, which makes sense because the author references it many times.
•
This definitely needs to find its proper audience and I will say, for something light and offbeat, it wasn't terrible. But you have to be in the mood for a book like this. I will say that the bookish theme is well done, with abundant references to book collecting, old New York libraries, Edith Wharton, Mark Twain, Dickens... it's the main story. So, combine that with a very well executed NYC vibe and it kept me interested.
•
Thank you @prhaudio for my copy!