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I have started reading Legends of the Chelsea Hotel by Ed Hamilton. In March when I was in line at a photo exhibit of Karla and James Murray in the East Village, Ed Hamilton and his woman friend were just ahead of me. I heard of his book then and decided to add it to my kindle wishlist. Soon I was able to get it for 1.99 (as it is now). I was looking forward to reading it but was in the middle of a book I wasn't into (The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles), so i had a lot of days when I didn't read it -- started it in March and finished early July. I took a break from it and read The Perfect Husband by Aphrodite Jones, which was about the Michael Peterson story (wife died falling on steps or by his murder of her in Durham, NC. Subject of a Netflix documentary and a recent HBO mini-series dramatization).
As a New Yorker living in a 5th floor walk-up for 45 years, I was appalled that people lived at the Chelsea Hotel with shared bathrooms. One bathroom per floor, I think. There were many drug shoot-ups in the bathrooms. The author moved in in 1996. I think he still lives there with his woman friend. It has gentrified, but I don't know if they ever added private bathrooms. I'm about 1/3 into the book. I'm feeling very smug that I have my own bathroom in my sub-par apartment in Hell's Kitchen.
Last week after I finished Amor Towles' Lincoln Highway, I read Lian Dolan's Lost and Found in Paris. OK book, but I was pleased that I could read it every night for a few days and finished it, unlike the Towles book. The plot didn't hold up. Luckily, I got it for 1.99 on Amazon. I listen to the Satellite Sisters podcast in which Lian Dolan is one of the sisters. I had read her previous book The Sweeney Sisters.
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