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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
readable but sort of too very cute and no one would date the history teacher come on.
Based on a real-life heroine, the self-proclaimed "Queen of the Bowery," this novel consists mostly of the fictional diary of Mazie Phillips, from age 10 to somewhere in her 40s, punctuated with interview snippets from people who knew her, or knew someone who knew her, or researched her. Ms. Attenberg has chosen to frame the first-person account as an obsessive topic for a young documentary maker.
The story itself is interesting enough: starting in her early 20s, Mazie worked in the box-office of a NYC movie theater owned by her brother-in-law, a Jewish (at least by heritage) business man with possible criminal connections. When the Great Depression brought her city to its knees, she fought to keep the theater open, walking the streets after the last showing, calling ambulances for injured and sick men, handing out change, blankets, and bars of soap.
In the diary format, the narrative sometimes drags. Some of the fictional flourishes were melodramatic, and the bits of back story for the documentary maker were distracting. While I think Ms. Attenberg made some interesting choices, I don't feel like they were all successful.
The story itself is interesting enough: starting in her early 20s, Mazie worked in the box-office of a NYC movie theater owned by her brother-in-law, a Jewish (at least by heritage) business man with possible criminal connections. When the Great Depression brought her city to its knees, she fought to keep the theater open, walking the streets after the last showing, calling ambulances for injured and sick men, handing out change, blankets, and bars of soap.
In the diary format, the narrative sometimes drags. Some of the fictional flourishes were melodramatic, and the bits of back story for the documentary maker were distracting. While I think Ms. Attenberg made some interesting choices, I don't feel like they were all successful.
3.5 stars.
Light, fun, semi-biographical portrait of a normal lady doing slightly un-normal things during the Great Depression.
I love books set in the jazz age of NYC, and the city was definitely the highlight of Saint Mazie. It was almost a character, it breathed life and emotion into the book.
Light, fun, semi-biographical portrait of a normal lady doing slightly un-normal things during the Great Depression.
I love books set in the jazz age of NYC, and the city was definitely the highlight of Saint Mazie. It was almost a character, it breathed life and emotion into the book.
I really enjoyed this book. The author does a wonderful job of weaving Mazie's narratives with others of those who knew her of knew of her through friends and relatives. I wish that the author had spent more time building out Mazie's story during the Depression though. I would have loved to see the detail of earlier sections there. Also, I could have done without most of Pete Sorensen's narrative. Parts of it were obviously critical, but most of it was not. Still, a book I'd highly recommend, and I would also be interested in finding out more about the woman whose life this was based on.
Maize is a gal you just wish you could've met. I wish the last 1/3 of the book was as strong as the first 2/3, but maybe that's intended to make you feel like the person that found the diary.
Edgy historical fiction, is that a thing? What a beautiful story of the challenges of NYC during the great depression. It's a diary format so it's excellent at keeping the pace going.
I love stories about NewYork City and the early 1900s, maybe because my grandfather talked a lot about his youth in Brooklyn and how his mother made ends meet. My grandfather would have admired Masie. This book, like its main character, is full of heart. Like New York, it is brash and brassy yey soft underneath. Great voice, great sense of time and place.
Inspired by a woman profiled in a collection of essays, Mazie lived quite a life. I really felt for her, she had such a kind heart and was destined to be alone. Her loneliness was what inspired her acts of charity.
I wanted to love this more. The beautiful drawing of a sardonic woman in an old school box office on the cover told me I would. But despite the pretense that this book is at all about cinemas and the Great Depression, the only homage we get to the old movie palace is Rudy, a minor character who is longing to have his own story told. Alas, this is not that story, and Mazie Phillips could not care a whit about films. They make her sick. Literally. And the Great Depression doesn't happen till two thirds of the way in. Mazie is a wonderful heroine, nevertheless and an interesting study in a person who would otherwise be a wild 'good-time girl' and likes to think of herself as such, but for whom familial obligation keeps her grounded. There are however, times when she doesn't leap off the page, when our author gets too caught up in framing devices leaving our steadfast Mazie to flounder. It's the sort of book where nothing happens, so we need to be at every moment invested in Mazie (and Tee! oh man, Tee is everything!), but it doesn't always work out that way. Wonderful secondary characters keep the book chugging along though, and it's not a bad read at all.