Girls, I just recently finished reading Teju Cole's first novel, "Open City," which caused a big splash among literary circles last year, and turned up on a lot of Notable or Best Books lists. With its lyrical prose style, I can easily see why.
The novel, though short, is tremendously scoped in content and structurally covers a lot of terrain. Julius is a young resident in psychiatry in Manhattan, and the novel goes back and forth between his walks through the city, his experiences there, and those overseas in his native Nigeria. The focus is tight, and never lets up, which allows Cole to keep a myriad of details and locales on track for the reader.
Of course, living in New York, as I do, or even if you have been a visitor, there are enough well known locales--the Cloisters, for example--for readers to get a visual grip. And he writes about the city in a way that is not breezy or jaded, like others out there who write about life in this varied terrain.
It is a first novel, and bodes well for future ones by Cole. I have to wonder if Julius is a stand in for Mr. Cole, whether he was a psychiatric resident or not. The narrator he has created, however that creation has been achieved, makes for a fascinating travel guide in this novel that is both a travelogue, social-historical account, and philosophical meditation.
After Lauren Weisberger, this marked my return to serious Literary Fiction. And it was a welcome return, I can tell you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Worthwhile reading, for all my literary minded girls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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