Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 earthquake. Some city births, like those New Orleans and Port Au Prince, fail-i.e. As the novel progresses, we learn more about the multiverse and how cities become born and how some, like Atlantis and Pompeii, fail. The avatars have to find one another and engage in a battle to save the city from being engulfed by another city from another universe. I found each the perfect personification of their borough: Manny, the multiracial newcomer who arrives to the city for college Brooklyn, the M.C.-turned-local-politician Bronca, the Lenape gallery director Padmini, the Tamil immigrant living with her aunt and uncle and Aislyn, the 30-year-old daughter of a cop who still lives at home.

So, the city then becomes five additional people-one for each borough.

When New York is born in the novel’s opening chapter, the primary avatar is hurt and vanishes. The premise of the novel is that all great cities are alive-once they reach a certain threshold, they are born, and a person is chosen to become the city’s avatar. Review: I have been in a bit of a reading slump lately (I discovered Animal Crossing), so what better way to jump back in than with a fantasy novel that literally personifies the city I’ve called home for more than 10 years now. Trigger Warning: xenophobia and racism (…from Staten Island, who else?) Some are ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. In Brooklyn, a politician and mother finds she can hear the songs of her city, pulsing to the beat of her Louboutin heels.Įvery great city has a soul.

In the Bronx, a Lenape gallery director discovers strange graffiti scattered throughout the city, so beautiful and powerful it's as if the paint is literally calling to her. But he can sense the beating heart of the city, see its history, and feel its power. Publisher Synopsis: In Manhattan, a young grad student gets off the train and realizes he doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name.

The city that we became