The Metropolis Case: A Novel [Paperback]

Matthew Gallaway (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 8, 2011

From the smoky music halls of 1860s Paris to the tumbling skyscrapers of twenty-first-century New York, a sweeping tale of passion, music, and the human heart’s yearning for connection
 
Martin is a forty-year-old lawyer who, despite his success, feels disoriented and disconnected from his life in post-9/11 Manhattan. But even as he comes to terms with the missteps of his past, he questions whether his life will feel more genuine going forward.
 
Decades earlier, in the New York of the 1960s, Anna is destined to be a grande dame of the international stage. As she steps into the spotlight, however, she realizes that the harsh glare of fame may be more than she bargained for.
 
Maria is a tall, awkward, ostracized teenager desperate to break free from the doldrums of 1970s Pittsburgh. When the operatic power of her extraordinary voice leads Maria to Juilliard, New York seems to hold possibilities that are both exhilarating and uncertain.
 
Lucien is a young Parisian at the birth of the modern era, racing through the streets of Europe in an exuberant bid to become a singer for the ages. When tragedy leads him to a magical discovery, Lucien embarks on a journey that will help him—and Martin, Maria, and Anna—learn that it’s not how many breaths you take, it’s what you do with those you’re given.
 
This unlikely quartet is bound together across centuries and continents by the strange and spectacular history of Richard Wagner’s masterpiece opera Tristan and Isolde. Grandly operatic in scale, their story is one of music and magic, love and death, betrayal and fate. Matthew Gallaway’s riveting debut will have readers spellbound from the opening page to its breathtaking conclusion.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his ambitious debut, Gallaway jumps backward and forward in time between two cities, spiraling in on four characters connected by music: Lucien, an opera singer coming-of-age in mid-19th-century Paris; Anna, an opera singer reaching the height of her career in 1960s New York; Maria, an extraordinarily promising young singer but a difficult student; and Martin, an aging lawyer whose love of music might save his life. The ties between them are at first so tenuous that readers may wonder when, how, or if their narratives will converge. But Wagner's Tristan and Isolde touches each in some way, as does, eventually, eternal life, a device that allows Gallaway to chronicle 1860s Paris and 1960s New York through the eyes of one character. Gallaway, a former musician, gives music a literary presence, intertwining opera and punk by illuminating their shared passion and chaos. But ambition sometimes gives way to pretension (particularly with chapter titles such as "Fashion Is a Canon for this Dialect Also") and purple prose, but the story remains grounded by characters grappling with love, in some cases for eternity. (Jan.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Author Matthew Gallaway has taken a great risk with his first novel by creating an intricate, multilayered tale that slides from past to present, from Europe to New York, from opera to pop. But despite the complexity, The Metropolis Case engages the reader emotionally on every page."--The Washington Post

“It’s to the credit of Matthew Gallaway’s enchanting, often funny first novel that it doesn’t require a corresponding degree of obsession from readers, but may leave them similarly transported: the book is so well written — there’s hardly a lazy sentence here — and filled with such memorable lead and supporting players that it quickly absorbs you into its worlds.”—The New York Times

"An absorbing and intricately plotted first novel. Gallaway excels at the long form, producing a dense, well-structured puzzle. Like the opera that ultimately binds his characters together, CASE lingers beyond the final note."--Out Magazine (Critic's Pick)

"Matthew Gallaway's epic debut novel, intimately intertwined with Wagner's "Tristan and isolde," is itself an operatic masterpiece. Gallaway's wonderful prose leaves you hungry for more."--AM New York

"Gallaway is a perceptive and graceful author in his own right whose moving story will appeal to Wagnerian experts and neophytes alike."--Los Angeles Times

“Gallaway’s novel, is not just an intricate, complex, and multilayered novel, but also a rewarding read, that leaves the audience looking forward to Gallaway’s next work.”—The Manhattan Times
 
“Mr. Gallaway writes epically, with multiple points of view, multiple stories. Historical and profound, he handles everything beautifully. He is a rich storyteller, and an evocative writer; the complexity of his characters, the rich scenes and the lyrical prose all make it hard to believe that this is his first novel.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

 “A cerebral novel.”—Historical Novels Review

“Matthew Gallaway’s The Metropolis Case is an ambitious, heady, intelligent and engaging first novel about the healing powers of art…it solidifies into a page turner, and better still, delivers on a wide range of concerns that go far beyond the musical interests that center the book’s narrative.”—Lambda Literary Review

“As ambitious a debut as they come, this sweeping first novel travels across not
only continents but centuries as well.”—Entertainment Weekly
 
“Even for a reader unacquainted with opera, The Metropolis Case enthralls.
Theatrical history, training at Julliard, opening night at the Metropolitan—this is an engaging and unusual subject matter. The Metropolis Case is an intriguing debut from a fresh, unique voice.”—Bookpage

"Gallaway, a former musician, gives music a literary presence, intertwining opera and punk by illuminating their shared passion and chaos."--Publishers Weekly

"A pleasingly intricate puzzle."--Kirkus Reviews

"Matthew Gallaway's fascinating and erudite debut novel is a portrait of the passion of several singers across the ages for a single opera, and turns into its own kind of novelistic chorus. Like Tristan und Isolde, the opera at its center, it is complete with wrong love, sacrifice and even a potion. An original new talent has arrived."-- 
Alexander Chee, author of Edinburgh and The Queen of the Night

"I know next to nothing about opera and I loved this book. Let me go further: I actually (don't tell anyone) find opera a bit dull, but now consider me a big buff -- if no other reason than it gave us this powerful, beautiful, wondrous novel."--Darin Strauss, author of Chang and Eng and Half a Life

"Matthew Gallaway possesses a massive vision and a wizard-like ability to weave story lines. The Metropolis Case is an ambitious and beautiful book sure to find a devoted following."--Shane Jones, author of Light Boxes

"The Metropolis Case is a terrifically engaging and elegantly panoramic novel that is sure to appeal to fans of majestic fiction such as Kostova's The Historian."--Katharine Weber, author of True Confections and Triangle


From the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; Reprint edition (November 8, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307463435
• ISBN-13: 978-0307463432
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #368,928 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

MATTHEW GALLAWAY got his B.A. from Cornell University, where he majored in government, and after working for several environmental groups in Washington DC attended law school at New York University. (He is fairly certain that he is the only graduate of NYU Law to work as a record-store clerk.) After passing the bar, he played in a rock band (Saturnine) for several years before turning his attention to The Metropolis Case. He currently lives in Washington Heights with his partner Stephen and three cats, Dante, Zephyr and Elektra.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Magical Case, December 31, 2010

By 

PushkinLover - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Metropolis Case: A Novel (Hardcover)

The Metropolis Case is an expert and frequently enchanting novel by first-time novelist Matthew Gallaway. It tells a story of epic sweep that bridges both the Old and New Worlds, three centuries, and the destinies of four characters who, besides having a profound engagement, whether as performer or aficionado, with Richard Wagner's epochal opera Tristan und Isolde, are also united by an unusual - and highly original - collusion of chance, fate, or luck. Thus it is in its own way a wily and suspenseful mystery, but one to which the actual solution is far less important than the path there. The attentive reader may be able to twist together the carefully laid strands before the official "reveal" (opera buffs will be clued in to some degree by the marvelously allusive title) but such is the author's masterful control of his art that every moment of revelation is handled with considerable and artful restraint, going further than the mere ticking off of a plot point, and leading the reader to consider ever more deeply the principal characters and their intertwining roles in the vast fabric of time and history and art.

Mr. Gallaway clearly has a special affinity for cities, likewise alluded to in the title of the novel. The novel's main locales - Paris, Vienna, Munich, suburban Pittsburgh, and most of all New York City (the novel is in part a valentine to that astounding metropolis) - are described in an alluring lack of over-specific detail all the better to enable their very different energies, moods, auras - the very taste of them - to filter through to the reader unhampered by any sense of being among tourist sites already well-digested by the culture. Instead: you are there.

It is, in fact, hard for me to think of a novel that I have read in which nature, classically considered, plays so sparing a part. And yet the touches of its presence that Mr. Gallaway bring into the world of his novel, in the forms of the growing appreciation of the vegetable world through the cultivation of a very urban garden and a touching subplot about the adoption of a stray cat, highlight them all the more.

Some might wish that some of the secondary characters, many of whom glimmer intriguingly in the background, might have been more fully developed, and a few might scorn some of the more jaw-dropping coincidences that make up the novel's plot, but these in no way damage the book's considerable magic, and are an integral part of how the novel works. It is in fact a grand fantasy on themes derived from Tristan and Isolde, especially in its main characters' search, sometimes anguished, sometimes amply rewarded, for love and "hoechste Lust" - supreme delight.

You absolutely don't need to be an opera lover or Wagner fan to appreciate this novel, or even have an acquaintance with the opera in question (though I'd urge you to go listen to it - it's great!). For most of all this novel is a tender, profound, impassioned, nuanced, and subtle answer to this question: What is art for? Like the answers to most of the deepest questions we ask ourselves, it is hardly reducible to a sound-byte. But the skillful form of the work, and the substantial pleasure of reading it, nevertheless vouchsafes to the thoughtful reader a haunting sense of having had a revelation that, even as it slips from your conscious efforts to grasp it, leaves behind its tantalizing essence: in short, the very reason that we seek to engage with art in the first place. Truly a book to savor word by word.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read!, December 31, 2010

By 

Randy L. Thomas (Boca Raton, FL United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Metropolis Case: A Novel (Hardcover)

I LOVED this book. I thought it started a bit slow and sometimes the language is unnecessarily academic...and it bugs me that the author uses "i.e." so much (it's not a thesis, after all) but these are minor irritations in the overall context of a great read. Wonderful characterizations; and the eventual weaving together of the separate stories is masterful and never forced. I appreciate how 9/11 played a part in the story without overwhelming the main themes. The importance of Tristan and Isolde does not require an intimate knowledge of opera in general or that opera in particular but adds a richness and important focus that cleaves the characters together. Once I got into the first few chapters of this book I found it hard to put down. I'm looking forward to Mr. Gallaway's next novel!

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Compelling, Romantic Read, January 15, 2011

By 

Dancing on the Sand - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Metropolis Case: A Novel (Hardcover)

Recently, my husband and I treated ourselves to a weekend of reading. After an enthusiastic review by the New York Times, we chose The Metropolis Case by Matthew Gallaway. What a joy! We found the book to be so compelling that we couldn't put it down. Matthew Gallaway depicted not only passionate outbursts of sexuality, but also carefully nuanced, emotional moments. I loved the romance of the book and have selected it for my book club. Overall, the book was luminous, haunting, provocative, numinous, and stirring. I give my kudos to the author and encourage everyone to read this fascinating book.