Customer Reviews

In the City: Random Acts of Awareness

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Colette Brooks blew my mind with this book. Everyone these days is so caught up in classifying literature, of putting people in their little boxes, of being able to say "It's like Gatsby meets Eggers on a road trip with Kerouac!" and then along comes Colette and proves that it IS possible to completely reinvent the form... or to invent A form. IN THE CITY is part short story collection, part prose poem, part historical novel, part autobiography. The text itself evades specifics-- every time you think you've got her pinned, know exactly what news item or neighborhood she's talking about, she spirits it away again and takes you someplace new. People talk about reading until they get to "a good stopping point". IN THE CITY has no good stopping point. You jump into the river of Brooks's prose and you're carried to the end, released back into the ocean of your life-- no matter where you live-- looking at it a little differently, a little more closely, and with a lot more affection for the lives around you.

Colette Brooks has joined the ranks of writers like E.B. White and Jane Jacobs with her beautiful new book, IN THE CITY. Brooks' subtly poetic prose, gentle humor, and eye for the telling detail open the city to the reader, revealing its soul. Anyone who has ever lived in, or dreamed of living in, a city will find this book resonating with echoes of their own feelings and dreams. It is impossible to put it down and impossible to leave it behind. One returns to the book again and again relishing special moments, phrases and insights. Ms. Brooks writes beautifully, sparely and with a unique voice.

In The City is a fantastic read. I never wanted to put it down and the few times when I did, the book immediately beckoned me back. Brooks' visions and ponderings are haunting and thought-provoking. With a language and structure that is incredibly unique and exquisitely poetic, she pulls the reader into the heart and soul of the city- a world so familiar and yet like no other. Any reader will quickly see that this is one of those ever so rare times when a writer will bring a brand new perspective to the world, and let us all look at the same old city for the very first time.

This first book from Colette Brooks is the carefully constructed product of a lifetime of reflection. This genre-stretching work should appeal to any city-dweller who's ever spent a half hour on the subway looking around at his or her fellow passengers and wondering what it all means.