Customer Reviews

The Cornelius Arms

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Versatile and empathic, Donahue shows a languid and swift compassion for the derelect and motlied inhabitants of a downtown Seattle apartment building. It is refreshing to read of Seattle in it's pre-grunge boom days where the forgotten and blighted areas maintained a unique blend of life without all the coffee metaphors. I was touched by the diversity of characters that Donahue so simply assumes; he does so without pomposity or anxiety.

The book finely depicts the spaces of an urban icon without too much glory, too much nostalgia, or too much kitsch. As America's cities become appropriated by its homogeneous suburbs, I sense the purpose to read of urban tales so diversely compelling.

Donahue's book and its themes have promise, but this has all been done before, such as in William T. Volmann's work on San Francisco or Palahniuk's on Portland--and those writers are engaging without seeming superior to their subjects, while Donahue's writing is often dry and tepid, and rarely infused with either the energy or the involvement his subject requires.