2/5 stars
Fourteen Days: A Collaborative Novel, edited by Margaret Atwood & Douglas Preston (2024)
A novel with 36 authors sounds intersting, right? I thought so. Especially when those authors include giants like Margaret Atwood, Dave Eggers, John Grisham, Mira Jacob, Celeste Ng, Tommy Orange, and R. L. Stine, to name a few. With authors ranging in age from their 30s to their 80s, from various cultural backgrounds, and specializing in a variety of genres, I was intruiged to see how they pulled it off - and whether it would feel cohesive, or just chaotic.
Unfortunately, instead of highlighting the talents of each author, this book flattened them all out. It's certainly a novel (haha get it?) idea... The authors were given essentially no instructions, beyond contributing a piece of writing. Then it was up to Atwood and Preston to find a way of merging these stories into one narrative. The result is something that somehow feels disjointed and choppy, while also giving each author a sameness that makes it commonplace and boring.
The story is set during the COVID-19 lockdown in New York City (the first fourteen days of it - from March 31-April 13, 2020). Unlike the affluent of the city, the players here are stuck in a run down tenement building called the Fernsby Arms (a grand name for a dreary and crumbling apartment building). The central character is the new superintendant, who lives in a basement apartment that belonged to the previous super. There, she finds a key to the rooftop, and something called "The Fernsby Bible" - notes from the previous super about each tennant, giving them nicknames like Vinegar, Eurovision, Hello Kitty, and The Lady with the Rings. When she heads up to the roof that evening, she finds a red fainting chair that she makes herself at home on. The following night, a few other tennants have joined her. By the end of the book, the rooftop is positively packed, though they do maintain 6-foot social distancing.
With nothing else to do, the tennants begin to tell stories from their lives. Surreptitiously, the super records them all on her phone, then transcribes them into the Bible at the end of each evening. While at the beginning, it's clear that none of them knows each other very well (and some actively dislike each other), the more they share their tales, the closer they become as a community.
What I liked about the book was the very palpable reminder of those months. Not that I was in NYC, but it was much the same everywhere. The super records the cases and deaths in the city and country each day, and that felt very familiar, as well as the general sense of isolation, fear, and confusion. It also makes mention of the 7:00 p.m. cheering, clapping, and banging of pots that took place every evening to show support for front line workers... the beauty of that, but also the growing tedium of it, after weeks and weeks.
What I didn't like is a longer list. As I've already said, the stories each had a blandness to them that made the characters uninteresting. I didn't really care about any of them, besides maybe the super and her plight to reach her father, who is at a nursing home somewhere Upstate. I didn't like that each storyteller was supposed to be speaking "off the dome," as they say, and yet none of their stories sounded like it was being spoken aloud to a group of strangers on a rooftop. They were all too polished, too sanded-down and smoothed out at the edges.
It was unique that the stories were not bylined - meaning you have no idea who wrote what unless you look at the list at the very back. But I wouldn't say that was good or bad. I don't think it really mattered, ultimately.
I won't spoil the ending in case anyone wants to read this, but let's just say there's a plot twist, but it happens much too late in the book (like, there are 384 pages and it happens on page 380-ish). The first 380 pages could've been halved, and then a few of those pages could have been given over to the final reveal and subsequent reactions.
The 36 contributing American and Canadian authors are: Charlie Jane Anders, Margaret Atwood, Jennine Capó Crucet, Joseph Cassara, Angie Cruz, Pat Cummings, Sylvia Day, Emma Donoghue, Dave Eggers, Diana Gabaldon, Tess Gerritsen, John Grisham, Maria Hinojosa, Mira Jacob, Erica Jong, CJ Lyons, Celeste Ng, Tommy Orange, Mary Pope Osborne, Doug Preston, Alice Randall, Caroline Randall Williams, Ishmael Reed, Roxana Robinson, Nelly Rosario, James Shapiro, Hampton Sides, R. L. Stine, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Monique Truong, Scott Turow, Luis Alberto Urrea, Rachel Vail, Weike Wang, De’Shawn Charles Winslow, and Meg Wolitzer.
UP NEXT: A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, by T. Kingfisher
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