Nothing Is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn: A Novel (P.S.) [Paperback]

Alice Mattison (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 16, 2008 | Series: P.S.

One quiet spring day in 1989, Constance Tepper arrives from Philadelphia to watch over her mother's Brooklyn apartment and her orange cat. Con's mother, Gert, has left town to visit her old friend Marlene Silverman in Rochester. Marlene has always seemed alluring and powerful to Con, and ever since Con was a little girl, the long-standing bond between Gert and Marlene has piqued her curiosity. Now she finds herself wondering again what keeps them together.

Con's week in Brooklyn will take a surprising turn when she wakes to find that someone has entered her mother's apartment and her own purse is missing. Stranded, with no money, she begins to phone family and friends. By the end of that week, she will experience a series of troubling discoveries about her marriage, her job, and her family's history, and much of her life will be changed forever.

In the fall of 2003, now living in Brooklyn and working as a lawyer, Con has almost forgotten that strange and shattering week. But a series of unsettling reminders and surprising discoveries—including traces of a lost elevated train line through Brooklyn—will lead to grief, love, and more questions. At last, a confrontation between Marlene and Con's daughter will unravel some of the mysteries of the past.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mattison's latest combines a dark comedy of manners with even darker midlife family suspense. Constance Con Tepper plays the starring role in two long vignettes that take place 14 years apart. In the first vignette, Con is 45 and staying in her mother Gertrude's Brooklyn apartment to watch the cat. During this episode, Gert has a terrifying and paralyzing experience, the repercussions of which affect both her and others' lives in the intervening years and in the later vignette. Although there are almost too many threads to keep track of in Con's story, the one that is most important and most fully realized jumps back to an even earlier episode: a mid-century correspondence between Gert and her friend Marlene Silverman. This fascinating epistolary device acts as a tempting breadcrumb trail through the women's lives and leads to the wrenching denouement. Though not all the subplots work (a major one involving Con's biracial daughter, Joanna, is flat), the overarching examination of friends and family is captivating. (Sept.)
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From Booklist

The repercussions of one week in the spring of 1989 will haunt Constance Tepper for the rest of her life. While her mother is out of town visiting Marlene, her oldest friend, Con travels from her home in Philadelphia to Brooklyn to care for her mother’s cat. Almost immediately, Con’s purse is stolen, her daughter goes missing, Con decides to leave her husband, and, finally, she gets a phone call from Marlene saying that her mother has suddenly died. Fourteen years later, Con is forced to reconsider this traumatic time when visits from her daughter, ex-husband, and Marlene coincide. There is “more than one way of telling the truth,” Con discovers, and the tricks the mind can play after so much time make the elusiveness of memory either a blessing of self-defense or a catalyst for disaster. Mattison’s narrative jumps from past to present abruptly, jarringly, demanding careful reading, which is rewarded with Mattison’s piquant reflections on the paradoxical capacity of secrets to destroy and unite. --Carol Haggas

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (September 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061430552
• ISBN-13: 978-0061430558
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,912,912 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alice Mattison grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and now lives in New Haven, Connecticut. Her new novel, WHEN WE ARGUED ALL NIGHT--about a friendship between two Brooklyn Jews that lasts for many decades, about the tumultuous events of the twentieth century, and about a woman slowly discovering who she is and whom she loves--has just been published by Harper Perennial. Her earlier books include NOTHING IS QUITE FORGOTTEN IN BROOKLYN, IN CASE WE'RE SEPARATED: CONNECTED STORIES, and THE BOOK BORROWER. Twelve of her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, and her stories, essays, and poems have been published in The New York Times, The Yale Review, The Pushcart Prize, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She teaches fiction in the MFA program at Bennington College. Her website is www.alicemattison.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars subtle and very rewarding July 19, 2009

By Pat Loftfjeld

Format:Paperback

I'm surprised to see the lack of 5-star reviews up here and decided I needed to post one--this book is a marvelous view into the human mind, and an exploration of what we think makes up a good story. Mattison's writing, as always, is like a thumb on an unexplored pressure-point, all her descriptions and observations somehow simultaneously perfect and utterly original. I loved Mattison's take on friendship, trust, and marriage, but I especially loved her focus on the human memory, and the many ways we don't even realize it fails us (since we don't remember). I've bought this book for at least 3 or 4 friends since I read it, and they've all loved it as much as I have.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Well worth any reader's time November 6, 2008

By Armchair Interviews

Format:Paperback

The voice of Brooklyn is back with another complex and fascinating novel, Nothing is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn. Author Alice Mattison is known for her short story collections and novels. Among my favorite was The Book Borrower. Brooklyn is again the setting for this tale that alternates between 1989 and 2003.

In 1989, Constance "Con" Tepper comes to Brooklyn to mind her mother's apartment and feed a constantly shedding cat. Gert has gone upstate to visit her dear friend, Marlene. On the first night, a stranger walks into the apartment and takes Con's purse. Con is left with no keys and no money. She cannot leave the apartment; she is afraid to leave without locking the door. She cannot call a locksmith because she has no money to pay the bill. She turns to her only connection to the world, the phone.

In 2003, Con has moved into the apartment. She has divorced her husband, Jerry, but they remain somewhat good friends. Con has continued her work as a lawyer-not for a corporation, like in 1989, but for a non-profit. Marlene is coming to visit and Jerry is coming to crash on her couch will in New York. Con is also expecting her daughter, Joanna. The arrival of these three at one time throws Con into a state of depression and near regret.

The alternating time frames are easily to follow. In the 1989 sections, I was quite intrigued with the World War II-era letters from Marlene to Gert that Con found in the apartment. They provide an enigma to the relationship between Gert and Marlene. Con was fascinated with Marlene when she was a child and the letters shed a new light onto that secondary friendship. As for the 2003 sections, I was fascinated by the relics of a lost elevated train that was supposed to be a time-saver back in the 1920s.

I gave Nothing is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn a four-star rating because there is a major discrepancy in how Con meets Gert's neighbor, Peggy, one of the novel's secondary characters. Except for that issue, this is a story worth a reader's time.

Armchair Interviews says: The surprises and twists add a deeper layer.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars intriguing character study September 20, 2008

By Harriet Klausner #1 HALL OF FAME

Format:Paperback

In 1989 fortyish Constance "Con" Tepper leaves her Philadelphia home to stay in her septuagenarian mom's Brooklyn apartment to watch the cat while Gertrude visits her friend Marlene in Rochester. Con has always wondered about the friendship between the two women that apparently dates back to WW II when she persuaded Gert to invest in a black market scheme run by her mobster boyfriend. In Brooklyn, Con is angry and jealous of her teen daughter Joanna who is accompanying her dad Jerry on a historical visit to Fort Ticonderoga; Jerry has never invited her on one of his history tours in spite of their years of marriage. The real shocker is when Marlene callas to inform her Gert died and that she, not the deceased daughters, is executor of the estate.

In 2003, a divorced Con lives in Brooklyn where she practices law. With Marlene, Jerry, Joanna and a friend coming at the same time to Brooklyn, Con looks back to 1989. However, it is Joanna who confronts Marlene over discrepancies in the account of Gert's death and the legal aftermath.

Told in two interrelated novellas, this is an intriguing character study although there are too many subplots; some not fully developed. Each key protagonist is developed enough so that the audience sees their motivations and flaws. Fans will enjoy this look at the past as Joanna insures NOTHING IS QUITE FORGOTTEN IN BROOKLYN even when it occurred six decades ago.

Harriet Klausner