I admit it… I like a nice ending with everyone living happily ever after. So, I surprised myself by picking up another Paul Auster novel, immediately becoming engrossed in it and found myself ultimately really liking it! After all, except for Brooklyn Follies (which I swear he wrote for his Grandmother who wanted a “happy” book from her grandson), Auster is the best known for his dark novels which push his readers to a place they may regret visiting. Sunset Park is novel about four squatters who have taken over an abandoned house in a sorry area of New York City. The novel starts with a long section from Miles Heller’s perspective. He is 26-years-old and has been living a nomadic and isolated lifestyle for the last seven years. He is living in Sunset Park because his true love is a 17-year-old girl living in Florida. Pilar’s parents are dead but she has three sisters looking after her — that is until she moves in Miles. Pilar’s older sister decides to take advantage of the unorthodox relationship and blackmails Miles; unless he does what she wants, she will call the police. Miles’ moves back to New York City to wait for Pilar’s eighteenth birthday; it is the city where he was born and the place where his father still lives.

Also in the house is Bing, the only friend Miles has kept in touch with the least seven years, and who has been regularly contacting Miles’s father with updates on his son; Alice, a young woman working on her doctoral thesis (the movie “The Best Years of Their Lives” plays a prominent role in her thesis and in the novel); and Ellen, a mutual friend of Alice and Bing, who seems to be spiraling into a deep and possibly destructive depression. We also read Morris Heller’s (Miles’s father) story which includes an interesting perspective on small press publishing and his history with Miles’s mother, a famous actress.

As in Brooklyn Follies, the characters become real (flaws and all) people. We can hope for the best but, as in reality, people don’t always do what’s best. The ending is ambiguous, not neat and tidy with a bow; you can only extrapolate on what Auster has built, but believe me, that is enough. Great writing and a book I will think about for quite a while. ~Patti