I just finished it and am still processing it. It was a strange mixture of satire, emotional insight and being so referential of its time period and particularly NYC culture of that period that I got a workout with my smartphone looking things up as I read.
Having lived in NYC, it was interesting reading a book that is so referential to particular areas that I know so well decades later. Union Square area, which I've lived near, is very different today from the type of neighbourhood it seemed back then, so it was interesting to really see it being alive at that time period. Also, by looking up a reference in the book I learned some NYC history, such as why Chelsea is named Chelsea. It wasn't what I would've assumed! It's amazing to think that not too long ago relatively, the area Chelsea was one large "uptown" and "country" estate.
I found the humour in the beginning and ending of the book the best. Here are two of my last notes that cracked me up:
Quote:
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"She wished Olive would move to California and never write to her, so she could have a really good reason for being mad at her."
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and
Quote:
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"Sentences floated through the air like autumn leaves, voices said they did or did not believe in palmistry but on the contrary did not or did believe in astrology. An ex-Central American president and an ex-Metropolitan singer noisily agreed that they did believe in black cats and Friday the thirteenth because of certain curious experiences they were only too happy to relate."
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It's interesting how here we are so much later and yet that last quote still rings so true.