Thursday, December 24, 2009

No Lease on Life by Lynne Tillman

An energetically neurotic woman confronts a befuddled cast of urban characters.

As I was reading, I kept thinking, I should hate this book, when am I going to start hating this book? Nothing happens. The story is about a woman whom I suspect would be highly annoying if encountered in real life refuses to submit to everyone else’s half assed standards. As a result, she is nearly driven mad in contemporary New York City. The novel ends with her throwing eggs at a bunch of yahoos. There’s no building of tension, there’s no climactic moments, but there are characters – highly eccentric vivid characters that you probably can only find in New York. Drug dealers, drug users, prostitutes, cops, incompetent supers, lumpy boyfriends. They all seem to be conspiring to ruin Elizabeth’s life. The characters and the prose style pulled me along and ultimately the book was very entertaining.