I have been meaning to read Lynne Tillman for a while! Tillman would probably hate that I say this, but this book is like a time capsule of 1990s NYC. I don't know if that is a good or bad thing. A woman is from the suburbs but now lives in a dump of an NYC apartment building. She keeps trying to get the super to clean the hallways but the other tenants just think "This is how it is, suburb lady." She can't sleep. There is always someone making a racket. I can tell this narrator is the type that will shove a reader right out of the book. I am usually a fan of those narrators. If the narrator doesn't shove the reader out of the book, then these dated jokes will shove the reader out of the book. I guess I'm not a joke person? I was trying to tell the purpose of so many jokes, but there is one line at the end that I think gave the jokes a bit of purpose. The jokes were odd for a punkish leaning book. I loved the line featuring a public bathroom: "The walls were zines." Take out the annoying jokes, and I really would have loved this gritty, punky book. As the narrator seems to become gritty, punky and a bit crazy. Most books about NYC would probably annoy me more. This book will not discourage me from reading other books from Lynne Tillman! I'm still looking forward to them. ( )

this is a very strange, stream of consciousness-esque rant (interspersed with random jokes and one-liners) about...well ostensibly about oppression and class systems and law enforcement (which i find really interesting) but which ends up being more about insomnia and really inconsiderate neighbors and useless landlords/superintendents and street crime (which i find considerably less interesting). but even if she stuck to the stuff that i find more compelling, the way she wrote this story just didn't work for me.

still, i really liked this:
"She wasn't as easy to push around and intimidate as people on welfare, or disadvantaged and handicapped people, or people depressed and frightened by a system that employs people to treat them with disdain while assisting them inadequately." ( )

This darkly comedic novel is set in a tenament in New York City. Elizabeth lives with Roy, suffers from insomnia, and is sickened and fascinated by all that goes on in the neighborhood. From her window she sees the junkies, prostitutes, destructive youths, and ineffective building superintendents who make up her block. From time to time she decides to do something about the filth and lack of attention to her building, always to be frustrated by the magnitude of the task, to return to her fantasies of wasting all of the low-life on the street. A sort-of funny story that’s not really very funny, despite the liberal sprinkling of amusing/corny/hackneyed jokes throughout. ( )