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A review by andipants
The Parting Glass by Gina Marie Guadagnino
3.0
The author does a fantastic job of evoking the time and place — the sights and sounds, the smells, the experience of walking around in 19th century New York. She also pays careful attention to her world-building — the upstairs/downstairs interplay, racial and ethnic tensions, poverty, politics, and gang activity of the time are all explored here, at least to some extent.
The plot is interesting, although the "double life" aspect is way oversold in the blurb. Mary spends her nights off drinking in a pub, mostly ignoring her brother's friends, and later carrying on a relationship with a working girl; she has no interest in politics and doesn't even realize until halfway through the book that her brother is involved at all with gang life, shortly after which he cuts off ties with her and she spends most of the rest of the book not interacting with him at all. Her focus is almost entirely on her life at the Walden house. This was, in fact, one of the weakest aspects of the book: Mary's relationship with her brother, and the events connected to his gang activity, often seem barely connected to the thread of the story overall. When things happen, there is a distinct lack of emotional depth or resonance; the only thing we see her being terribly emotional over for most of the book, is her secret love for Charlotte (). Mary's relationship with her brother, which ought to be the heart of the conflict, feels terribly underdeveloped, and her connection with Liddie is unsatisfying.
In the end, there were elements that I really liked, but given the setup, this should have been a love for me, and it just fell a bit short. Not bad, but could have been much better.
The plot is interesting, although the "double life" aspect is way oversold in the blurb. Mary spends her nights off drinking in a pub, mostly ignoring her brother's friends, and later carrying on a relationship with a working girl; she has no interest in politics and doesn't even realize until halfway through the book that her brother is involved at all with gang life, shortly after which he cuts off ties with her and she spends most of the rest of the book not interacting with him at all. Her focus is almost entirely on her life at the Walden house. This was, in fact, one of the weakest aspects of the book: Mary's relationship with her brother, and the events connected to his gang activity, often seem barely connected to the thread of the story overall. When things happen, there is a distinct lack of emotional depth or resonance; the only thing we see her being terribly emotional over for most of the book, is her secret love for Charlotte (
Spoiler
which ultimately, obviously, goes nowhereSpoiler
She settles for Liddie because she's there; we get no impression at all that she appreciates the relationship or has any kind of significant feelings for her; ultimately it comes off as kind of selfish and I just feel bad for Liddie.In the end, there were elements that I really liked, but given the setup, this should have been a love for me, and it just fell a bit short. Not bad, but could have been much better.