Kissing in Manhattan

Rating:
Summary: this is great!
Review: At first it seems a little disjointed -- various characters, all living in Manhattan, most of them in an old building called the Preemption, built in the 1890s, each with their own private psychosis/neurosis. After a while, however, a plotline linking all of these characters emerges.

There is the 31-year-old private school teacher whose student's parents want him to marry her. There is Jasper, who wanted to be a comedian like his grandfather and instead makes his stage debut as an angry giant mouse. There is Jeremy who is so shy but is actually the most interesting (he gets the most short stories devoted to him.)

There is also the chilling Patrick, Jeremy's roommate, who likes to dress up women and tie them up, but not sleep with them, in an effort to dull the pain of seeing his brother die in an absurd manner as a child. (The fact that he has the same name and manner as the character in "American Psycho" probably made him really scary to me.) Oddly enough, Patrick goes to church to see one particular priest, who of course has his own story.

I highly recommend this book and look forward to reading more from this author.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book!
Review: Do yourself a favour and commit to reading at least the first two stories, come hell or high water, before deciding whether you like this book or not. If you only read the first one then you will abandon it, as I almost did, which would be a real shame because although this book requires a bit of dedication it is definitely worth it. It's not that the first story is bad, it just simply...pointless. There's no reason for it to be there.

The book, which centres around the Preemption building and its inhabitants, is somewhere between a collection of short stories and a coherent novel as in the first stories the characters are introduced either one by one or in couples and then later they start weaving in and out of each other's stories. For a first-time author David Schickler pulls this off remarkably well, managing to keep a constant narrative flow which never over-explains or over-emphasizes any single character. They may not all be likeable but they are definitely all interesting. Even as the book moves into its second half and you start to have three main characters, with the rest of them becoming somewhat more of a backdrop, you don't regret having met a single one of them as they all become building blocks which together create the special atmosphere of the book; one which will linger after the final page is read and the book is closed.

"Kissing in Manhattan" is like tasting a piece of a completely new kind of exquisite confectionery - two minutes ago you didn't even know that it existed but it will leave you with a craving for more.

Rating:
Summary: Totally Bizarre and Delightfully Kinky
Review: I loved the idea of linked short stories working as a novel -- "Slaves of New York" is one of my favorites books, so I was glad when a friend recommended this book to me as a sort of bizarre episode of "Sex and the City" -- all of the stories in this book revolve around the residents of a particular Manhattan apartment building and by "linking" the stories, Schickler turns them into a novel. Individually the stories are very well written and delightfully twisted -- there is "Telling it All to Otis," about the guy whose best friend is the old elevator in the building, and "Serendipity," about the young woman who seduces her co-worker, strips him of his clothes, and then humiliates him by locking him out in the hallway. The art of Schickler's prose is that he is able to pinpoint his character's quirkiness through a variety of methods, be it dialogue, character details, or by placing his oddballs in unlikely settings. My favorite running thread in the book involved the high school teacher and his gorgeous student, whose courtship is detailed in "The Smoker," one of the best written stories in the book. The only drawback for me was connecting with the adult character of Patrick Rigg, the dark, kinky millionaire, whose running thread sends all the plot lines into their strange denouement (though "Duty," which recounts the tale of Patrick's youth is a real beauty of comedy and pathos). Schickler is a terrifically talented writer and I am looking forward to reading more of him.

Rating:
Summary: preemption apts...another observatory mansions?
Review: I thought I had purchased a book of short stories. I don't usually read short stories, but after hearing that Schickler got a phenomenal amount of money for the movie rights to "The Smoker" (one of the selections), I was curious enough to give it a try. I wasn't disappointed. After the first couple of stories, quite unique in content, the Preemption Apartments kept coming into play. Then previous characters started reappearing. I loved the way Schickler entwined it all. What a cast of characters and situations it was! I honestly had no idea where each story was going...and was never let down by the outcome. The Preemption Apartments must have had at least a few normal inhabitants...but do we really want to read about them? Poor Charles, haunted by his brother's MOST BIZARRE death, treats his women in a MOST UNUSUAL way. James has a secret rendezvous with the Otis elevator each night. A teacher is asked by a female student how he feels about gnocchi! A man

with a large birthmark on his face finds himself in dire straits. I was reminded of Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey. This too was a place inhabited by strange, disfunctional individuals. Francis Orme was similar to James Branch...unable to communicate. Francis had his plinth and his underground museum, while James had his elevator. Anna Tap was Rally McWilliams. I thoroughly enjoyed both books and was fascinated at the genius of authors who are able to use their imagination in a far, far more creative way then most.

Rating:
Summary: Elegant and fresh
Review: I was not expecting to like this book as much as I did. The stories are both gentle and insightful. The author is witty without sneering and he is even merciful to his villains. Another way to look at this book is as a valentine to NYC.

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Surprise
Review: I'm not usually a fan of the short story, but I did enjoy this book, as it was much more than simply a collection of stories. Although each could stand alone (except for the final one), they are all interconnected as characters from any given story pop up in unexpected (contrived?) places in others. This book started out as a light fantastical comedy but became dark as Patrick emerged as a major player. Some of the earlier stories were weaker than the others, so give it a chance if you are not totally excited right away.

Rating:
Summary: Uneven collection
Review: Kissing in Manhattan is a collection of loosely connected stories whose characters all live in the same apartment building in Manhattan. Falling somewhere between a novel and a collection of short stories, this book fails on both counts. The stories are too disjointed to achieve the flow of a novel or for the reader to care much about the characters' development, but the stories are too interconnected to really stand on their own. The writing is, for the most part, very good, but the characters often come across as unsympathetic and alien. Some judicious editing would have helped; for instance, the story "Jacob's Bath" could have safely been cut, making for a stronger book. However, a few stories stand out and are good enough to warrant a weak recommendation for the book. Two of my favorites were "Fourth Angry Mouse," about a failed comedian who finds his voice in the persona of a giant mouse in an off-Broadway play, and "The Opals," about a man who meets a Hephaestian jeweler in the basement of a sex shop and receives a gift of the earrings he will someday give to the woman he loves. I could have left the rest of the volume alone, but these two stories were worth the reading of it.

Rating:
Summary: Starts off okay...gets better...ends "nicely"
Review: Kissing in Manhattan is a strange trip through the lives of different Manhattanites who, in one way or another, cross paths. I didn't particularly like the first story in the collection, "Checkers and Donna," but I was glad to see that the other stories didn't follow in its lead. I think it's pretty interesting that (in my opinion) this is the weakest story out of the book, and we don't hear mention of Checkers or Donna until 3/4ths into the book.

Anyway. All the stories leading up to Patrick are really interesting, dark and different. The story of Patrick, is the epitome of this book and it almost seems like Schickler realized this at some point in his writing career, but didn't want to center is first book around Patrick. Perhaps he should have because Kissing in Manhattan feels more like a collection of short stories and a novella.

I can't say I was too thrilled with the ending of the last story, which is the ending of Patrick's story, but all good writers have problems with ending (and perhaps, it really isn't the end?). It was too "clean" and "nice" for me. Schickler should have kept with his darkness and used that to create a really interesting ending.

I would definitely recommend this book to those that like to read dark dramas with surrealistic tendencies. Just keep in mind that not everything has to make sense to you - and that what you don't understand may be someone else's reality.


Rating:
Summary: Lubricious
Review: My theory is fiction writers (especially regarding their first novel) is analogous to my theory on psychiatrists. Every psychiatrist I know has gone into the profession to learn more about their own particular psychosis. Likewise, every author writes his first novel to exorcise his secret fantasies. If this is indeed the case, Schickler is one messed up dude.

Each story is about a character's search for a lover and ultimately acceptance the taciturn landscape of a Manhattan apartment building - the Preemption. We are introduced to each character in terms of their principal personal flaw, be it physical or emotional. (What is Schickler's own personal flaw? Perhaps he had both an unsightly birthmark and total insecurity about a childhood loss). Each of these flaws is at the core of Schickler's stories. The stories focus on the pursuit of the opposite sex. We eavesdrop on each characters fantasies and insecurities. (I think Schickler must secretly desire to order a gorgeous travel writer into his jalopy). One thing is for certain, Schickler idolizes beautiful women. Every woman in the book is gorgeous and lubricious. The most developed character (and thus - according to my theory - the character most closely resembling Schickler) is a stock trader with deviant sexual practices that I won't reveal (suffice to say Schicker's dates had better be suspicious of nice diners).

In the end, Kissing in Manhattan is clearly Schickler's own little personal fantasy with names changed to protect the innocent. It's a book about losers scoring the knockout babe, about dazzling women allowing themselves to be dominated by eccentric men, and ultimately about ONE man's quest to find sexual satisfaction and acceptance of his personal shortcomings. That man's name is David Schickler.


Rating:
Summary: A fun, quick read!
Review: Normally short stories piss me off because I don't want them to end. That's how I felt with each passing story in this book. Each character and each little journey was so fascinating and intriguing...I was bummed when their stories came to a close. HOWEVER, "K-I-M" is different because all the stories come together near the end. Very clever! I have to say that the Patrick Rigg story scared me because it reminded me of American Psycho (by B.E. Ellis), but it really didn't turn out to be gruesome at all. (On a sidenote, I was especially fascinated by Patrick's source of gratification. A very interesting approach to dealing with women's general issues of self-esteem in the area of appearance. Very interesting! They always say that one of the hardest things to do is to look squarely at your own eyes in the mirror for as long as you can!) I like Schickler's style of writing, very quick and no-nonsense...sort of like New York City itself. However, the Father Merchant story was different from all the rest because the author introduced this mystic, psychic element to the picture, which was at first hard to swallow after reading all of these stories about people who are just living their lives, trying to get by, so very steeped in the present, or the "here and now." That's okay though...it was necessary and it made sense. I really enjoyed this book. It was a nice collection of glimpses into other people's lives, and ultimately a good example of how small the world is. So many lives are deeply moved simply by people just bouncing off each other without even trying.