Alternate Side: A Novel

I have enjoyed Anna Quindlen's non-fiction, and I thought I might find her novel about life in Manhattan to be infused with the humor and perceptiveness so evident in her essays. Alas, this book was a tedious read, and I finished it only because I kept hoping it would get better. I found the characters to be superficial and the plot almost non-existent. I felt like I was reading the journal of a boring woman who shared way too much detail about little things that no one other than the protagonist would care about. By the end, I was skimming, and just wanting it to be over.

Alternate Sides: the theme of there being two sides to everything is examined over and over in this new book by Anna Quindlen. 'Alternate sides' could refer to something as simple as street cleaning rules for parking. It could refer to have and have-nots, the rich and their servants. It could refer to differing personalities, different sexes, different opinions, two sides to a story. Real and fake...

Alternate Side seems to be, first and foremost, a love affair with New York City--at least on the part of the main character, Nora Nolan, who came to the city for college and never wants to leave, even though Charlie, her husband, would leave in a minute. She, Charlie, and their college-age twins Rachel and Oliver, live in an upscale neighborhood in a Victorian townhouse on a dead-end street (and yes, that's very symbolic.)

Nora is happy to walk most everywhere but Charlie, along with other males on the block, MUST have their cars, and parking is a huge issue. When Charlie is granted a coveted parking space in an empty lot on their block, he is ecstatic. It's like winning the lottery!! And no one had better mess with that privilege...

This insular neighborhood, 'a bastion of white privilege,' seems like one big happy family with its block parties and barbecues until it is torn apart by the violent act of one resident with anger-management issues which puts the local handyman in the hospital. Was it accidental or intentional? Opinions on the issue divide neighbors and even husbands and wives, revealing cracks that might have been there all along.

Although I have intended to read Anna Quindlen's books for years, this is my first taste; therefore, I cannot compare this book to her other work and 'take a side' on which is her best. But I found this character-driven story quite intriguing and intelligent. Quindlen humorously nails marriages. One of my favorites: "It occurred often to Nora that they all tended to be much more solicitous of their dogs than of their spouses, and she was not sure whether that was because their dogs loved them unconditionally, did not engage them in conversation, or simply didn't live long."

Alternate Side is about haves and have-nots of Manhattan, in fact, a small block of Manhattan. The main character Nora is a rich NewYorker who lives downtown in a brownstone on a dead-end street. Nora begins to work in a jewelry museum, and her husband the clueless Charlie wants and gets a free parking spot near their place. Nora is good to others unlike most of their neighbors, but especially Charity her maid and Ricky, the neighborhood handyman. Their neighborhood is a tight-knit community where anyone’s business is everyone’s business, but the characters in this community watch out for one another. When one of them, in an explosive anger, hurts Ricky, Nora finds herself annoyed with the community and her husband.

The conflict in the story is soft, but this is New York and the secondary characters supposedly reflect what Manhattanites are like, cold, selfish, and reserved. Not all characters are adequately or credibly drawn, however. The main character is intelligent, well-meaning, but imperfect, as it takes her a long time to see things and people as they really are. Although she lives with her husband, Charity, and their dog, with their two college-age kids coming and going at intervals, her marriage is not built on a solid foundation, which takes its toll by the end of the novel. Nora is a good worker and excels in doing her job.

The plot and the characters are skillfully constructed, and the story takes its name from the alternate-side parking rule that changes from day to day. Although Nora is the main character and the author does a good enough job of getting into her head, the real story is about the neighborhood, which has made me think that this neighborhood is the main character, where the brownstones belong to different wealthy families, their members indifferent to those who are less fortunate.

The point of view belongs to Nora, and the story is about the life in the city and its upper class. The nuisance of city life and its anxieties are well captured by this author, but although I have lived in New York and have read other books by Anna Quindlen, I couldn’t fully warm up to this story.

Anna Quindlen is one of those writers who has always felt known to me. Even before she embarked on fiction --- left me stunned and tearful with her powerful novels about a mother’s death (ONE TRUE THING, 1994) and domestic abuse (BLACK AND BLUE, 1998) --- I was a devoted reader of her New York Times columns, “Life in the 30’s” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Public & Private.”

Now she has set her ninth novel, ALTERNATE SIDE, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where I live. Unlike her protagonist, Nora Nolan, I do not own a house, dwell on a dead-end block, employ a nanny or handyman, or have a car (to any New Yorker who does, alternate side instantly summons up parking, and the rules that require shifting from one side of the street to the other to make way for street cleaners and snowplows). Still, reading it, I wondered if Quindlen and I were neighbors, if I might bump into her at the local Walgreens or Starbucks.

ALTERNATE SIDE is about many things: an urban community as close-knit as a small town, a violent incident that lays bare the chasm between privilege and poverty, a dying marriage. It is also an affectionate yet acerbic love letter to New York City. That’s a lot, maybe too much for one novel. Plot and character get a bit lost in a torrent of quasi-anthropological observations and digressions. Yet Quindlen’s trademark wit, insight and warmth make it a sympathetic and rewarding story.

For the first 100 pages, nothing much happens. We get acquainted with Nora and her family (her sad sack husband, Charlie; college-age twins, Ollie and Rachel; patient dog, Homer). Soon enough, we learn that the entire block (the owners, not the renters, who lack stature and staying power) is served by a Dominican handyman who fixes anything and everything --- “Ricky had made himself essential. They had all made themselves helpless” --- and ultimately becomes the linchpin of the story.

I won’t describe the precise nature of the incident that victimizes Ricky and gets the book in gear. But the different versions (“alternate sides”) of what happened and what it meant --- from Charlie’s claim that it was an accident to the twins’ bald accusation (“This is all because Ricky is brown and poor”) to the usual New York chorus of screaming tabloid headlines --- divide the residents of the block and eventually splinter the Nolan family.

It is both the charm of ALTERNATE SIDE and its downfall that even after the incident and its consequences, Quindlen frequently breaks away from the narrative to delve into subjects ranging from rats to remodeling, dogs to dinner parties, cooking services to memorial services, twins to generational time zones (“Nora couldn’t get used to the notion that when she was asleep, her children were awake, and vice versa”). She’s like a brilliant conversationalist who wanders constantly from her topic, and her excursions, however diverting, make the novel feel episodic and leach momentum from the plot.

In staking out this semi-satirical BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES-type territory, Quindlen wins points for cool commentary but loses emotional resonance. Nora is just about the only character who isn’t a type. Smart but discontented women and anxious, angry, career-frustrated men abound. There’s the college boyfriend who turned out to be gay, the no-nonsense Jamaican nanny with a heart of gold, the over-ambitious office assistant (“a heat-seeking missile”), the therapist married to a guy with anger management issues, the bratty teens who surprise her with flashes of wisdom.

Nora herself, with her Ephronesque voice (surely the twinned first names are no accident), makes up for a lot. “I’m a New Yorker. Cynicism is my religion,” she declares at one point, but that’s not entirely true. She has a pretty healthy social conscience and manages to be both ironic and compassionate about where she sits on the city’s class ladder. When she ventures to Ricky’s neighborhood in the Bronx to lend him a humidifier for his sick son, she’s shocked to realize how different he was on his home turf: a “buoyant character” who practically danced down the street, not “the leaden facsimile he took downtown each day for work.”

Nora’s relationship with her daughter is Quindlen at her best. Rachel steals her mother’s clothes (“Sometimes when Nora bought a blouse she could almost feel it slipping from her shopping bag directly into Rachel’s duffel”), complains about being grilled “like a criminal” when Nora asks an innocent question, instructs her not to text at 8 in the morning (“My phone is under my pillow”). Yet there’s a deep connection here. “Her daughter could be combative, egocentric, impossible. But she could read Nora’s voice as no one else could, even Charlie. Especially Charlie.”

Speaking of Charlie, the decline of that relationship also rings true, though it is fairly predictable (as early as page 15, Nora likens the marriage to “the AA prayer: ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,’ Or at least to move into a zone in which I so don’t care anymore and scarcely notice”). Stronger than her love for Charlie or even the kids is Nora’s sheer, possessive passion (“primal and chemical”) for the city she lives in, which is the heart of the novel. Although New York (and Nora herself) is no longer as funky and hungry and grungy as when she arrived --- its “rough edges and quirks sanded down” --- she adores it still: the Hudson River, the hot dogs and gyros, the people who “rant on the street,” the lady who feeds the geese and gulls.

The changes the city goes through mirror Nora’s own epiphanies, losses and evolution. In the end, she reinvents herself. Charlie moves out; the kids move on. She changes jobs. The house is sold, changing her from owner to renter (“Nora didn’t need a handyman, not anymore. She had a super instead”), with a manageably sized apartment and the impractical white couch she’d always wanted.

ALTERNATE SIDE may lack the visceral impact of Quindlen’s other fiction, but it’s a fine read, both clever and poignant. Nora is a woman worth knowing. I can’t help wishing she’d move in next door.

Reviewed by Katherine B. Weissman

Every Last One & Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen | Double Review

{Common Themes}
Quindlen, A Writer of Women – In both Every Last One and Alternate Side I was struck by just how well Anna Quindlen developed her female leads. Both were women so real I felt like I easily knew them. Mary Beth Latham might be one of my own friends or neighbors, and under slightly different circumstances I might say the same of Nora Nolan. Quindlen thoroughly fleshes out her protagonists and makes an entire story in which every step they take, every decision they make resonates with authenticity.

Family Relationships – It’s clear to me that Anna Quindlen likes to write about what she seems to know best, families. In Every Last One her primary focus was on Mary Beth Latham’s relationships with her three teenage children. As with all teens they could be fun, difficult, and emotional and Mary Beth worried about each for different reasons. Her relationship to her husband was just as real, but took a bit of a backseat in this story, whereas in Alternate Side the relationship between Nora Nolan and her husband was at the heart of its story. Nora’s children were just slightly older and on the brink of being independent. In both books the family relationships rang completely true.

A Community, For Better or Worse – In Every Last One Quindlen built a network of friends (both close and not so close), relatives, employees, other parents, and friends of children to create a real sense of community: wonderful, but sometimes cloying. In Alternate Side, the bigger community was the city of New York in its totality, but within that was the tiny dead-end street where much of the drama of Nora’s life occurred.

Best Friends – I loved that in both books the women whom the stories were about had a best friend in the most fundamental sense. Alice and Jennie, each close friends since college, were unconditionally present for Mary Beth and Nora when needed. That unwavering loyalty is everything that a best friend should be and these two shone.

A Pivotal Event – The fact that both books had a moment that changed the trajectory of the entire story is no huge surprise. Most stories have such a moment, but I was startled by both in Quindlen’s books. The events forever changed the course of her heroines’ lives, admittedly more so for Mary Beth than for Nora. For both women, I appreciated the metamorphosis Quindlen delivered as they came to terms with a new reality.

{Final Thoughts on Each}
Every Last One

Everyone was right, I should have tried Anna Quindlen a long time ago. I thought Every Last One was amazing. Before I had any idea where the book was going, I was enthralled by the normalcy of the Latham family. They could have been my family, or my neighbors. I liked them. I worried for them because I knew tragedy in some form had to await. What actually happened I never saw coming. I was stunned and also a little awed that Quindlen could so successfully go there. Her resolution of this story felt exactly right to me, perfectly real and that’s why I so loved Every Last One. Grade: A

Alternate Side

I liked the story of Nora Nolan at a critical time in her life. Her children were out of the house, her husband was restless and their dreams were no longer the same. I also really appreciated the secondary star of this book, the city of New York itself: the lives it contains, the people at odds, the way the city is ever-changing, always moving forward and never looking back. Nora was the embodiment of NYC and that was fantastic! If I only focused on these part of Alternate Side, it was wonderful, but there were a lot of other parts. The entire parking theme that ran through the rest of this story got old. I know parking is a HUGE issue if you live in New York, but honestly, it’s boring to the rest of us. Similarly, the walking of dogs and the rats, I could have also done without. I understand that these conflicts helped to move Nora through her story; I’d have just enjoyed it more had Quindlen found a different way. Still, I liked much more than I didn’t about Alternate Side, so please don’t be scared away by my (or others’) review. Try Alternate Side and decided for yourself, especially if you’re an Anna Quindlen fan as I now am! Grade: B

Note: I received a copy of this book from the Random House (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest thoughts.

NYC, it’s like chemistry either you have it, or you don’t. There’s no explanation, Nora’s sister tells her. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to live in NYC. This book is Nora’s story and it paints a picture of being the quintessential New Yorker. She’s married to Charlie, had two kids and lives in an upper class dead end neighborhood in the city. She talks to the quasi homeless, walks to work, walks her dog, runs in Central Park on the weekend, and has a nice job as a director of a jewelry museum. Nora’s a “generic woman of a certain age.”

The writing is excellent. It’s not for everyone. All of it is inside Nora’s head and some is miniate that I just didn’t care about, till it got to a point, sort of. I liked Nora, she’s a white, middle age, empty nester mother, wife, working woman and so am I.

Marital Complicity and parking spaces are really the driving forces in this book. Nora and Charlie Nolan appear to have it all. They live on a dead-end street in a very stately home in New York City. On the outside they seem as though they have a good life - if only they could have that prized parking spot! Their children are older and are away at college, Nora and Charlie should be enjoying their time together - but then a violent incident occurs and rocks their tight knit happy little community. Which side do you take? What happens when your comfortably uncomfortable life begins to unravel?

UGH! Is this book well written? Yes, this book is very well written but my problem with this book is the fact that I just didn't care. Yes, they had a dead-end marriage just as they lived on a dead-end street, but I just didn't care that much about them to care about what happens to them. I do get the obsession with the parking spot. I have never lived in New York City, but I live in Los Angeles and know what a pain it can be to not be able to park where you live.

This is a book about not only the characters but a look at the "elite" and the people who work for them. About life in the city, daily observances on life, about a marriage, about a community, about a woman who seems ambivalent about her life and marriage. Is she happy, is she unhappy, is she angry, is she resigned that this is her life? I found this book to be slow - I am most likely in the minority on this book but it failed to wow me.

I received a copy of this book from Random House and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I've lived in Manhattan and I understand the parking situation etc but really? I have always liked Quindlen but this one left me cold and, regrettably, it ended up a DNF. I think the problem, at least for me, is that if you actually own a whole house in NYC and are paying for two kids in private colleges, you're in a serious income bracket. Parking in an open lot or doing the alternate side of the street thing is not what I would expect. I spent the first several chapters of this novel trying to figure out how Charlie and Nora bought that house and where exactly it is supposed to be. I didn't find Nora especially appealing and I didn't get Charlie at all. I tried but there have been several other high end NYC novels this year that felt somehow more relatable even with all the privilege these characters have. I flipped ahead to find the act of violence and read from there but it still didn't grab me. Thank to the publisher for the ARC. I dislike giving bad review and I wanted to like this but I just didn't.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing me with an e-galley of Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen in exchange for an honest review. I must admit that I am a fan of Ms. Quindlen's writing, be it fiction or non-fiction. This particular novel tells the story of Nora and Charlie Nolan, who live on a dead-end upper-crust block in NYC which provides them with close relationships with their neighbors, at times too close. It is apparent that living there can and does become somewhat claustrophobic. One violent incident sets off a chain of events that will affect almost everyone on the block, including Nora and Charlie. The book is well-written and a most enjoyable read. Highly recommended for fans of relationship fiction.

I’ve been an Anna Quindlen fan for quite awhile – Black and Blue among my favorites. I was really looking forward to her latest, Alternate Side…and, as usual, it was well-written with excellent dialogue, setting, and characterization. The problem for me was that I not only didn’t care for the setting, I really didn’t care about the people…despite Quindlen’s skill at making them real for me.

In this book, the Nolans (Nora and Charlie) are among the elites of New York City, living on a dead-end street with huge issues around parking (hence the title). Bothe their kids are at college, life should be terrific, right? But then an act of violence occurs, and the neighborhood starts to unravel.

Charlie and Nora live on a dead-end street, and have a dead-end marriage. had a dead-end marriage just as they lived on a dead-end street. The story revolves around the elite residents on this dead-end street but addresses issues of class, including characters who are not among the elites. It is fascinating to see such a smug character as Nora interact with those people she would never encounter in the neighborhood if the elites didn’t need so many services.

So: interesting, entertaining, well written. Just not my thing. Four stars.

Nothing rang true to me in this book. The characters, the dialogue, or even New York City. I still can not figure out who Nora is. I can't picture her in my mind. I can't understand why an executive, her husband's boss no less, would want to hire her to run a huge non-profit. She seems so bland. Similarly, I can not understand the homeless guy, Phil. The conversation between him and Nora is just completely unrealistic. None of it makes sense. Then there is the "incident". First of all, it happens and it is presented as the biggest thing ever, then really has no impact on the arc of the story, (maybe because there is no real arc or real story). Second, I am still trying to figure out how an old man can do THAT much damage to the leg of a young man with a golf club. A bat? Sure. But a golf club? Makes no sense. It also makes no sense that a group of rich people in NYC would be haggling over some rat infested vacant lot to park their cars. Speaking of NYC, Quindlen wrote about it as if she has never stepped foot in the city. It actually sounded more like my Westchester suburb. The thing that bugged me the most, and I am not sure why, is when she had a character refer to JFK as "Kennedy"! She lost all credibility when she wrote that. No one who lives in NYC, or near NYC would refer to JFK as "Kennedy". Ultimately, this book was just very flat, with characters that had no depth, living in a very generic city that sounded nothing like Manhattan. I don't get how an author of this caliber could get away with such a weak effort.

Alternate Side starts slowly, showing the reader a slice of Nora and Charlie Nolan’s life in their New York City neighborhood. They live on a dead end street so it’s more like they’re in a small town than in the heart of a big city. There is a big cast of characters, such as the resident who’s been there forever and knows everything and the annoying know-it-all neighbor George, who has appointed himself the neighborhood hall monitor. The big news in the Noland’s life is that Charlie has just scored a parking space in the neighborhood’s parking lot and that their twins are about to graduate from college. I enjoyed the slow and winding story but wondered where it was going.

Halfway through, a tragic incident occurs on the block that has the neighbors reeling. Nora and Charlie find themselves on opposite sides as far as who was at fault for what happened. (Sorry – not going to spoil what it was!) Alternate Side is also a study on life and marriage after one’s children are grown and gone. What are you left with when being a parent is no longer your life’s primary focus? Charlie and Nora find themselves on opposite sides of this issue as well.

I loved that there was such a wide variety of characters in this book. Some I loved and some I loved to hate. And some I just hated! New York City was another character in itself. I lived there in my younger days and it made me miss it.

The only other one of Quindlen’s books I’ve read is Every Last One, which I really liked. Every Last One was like a punch in the gut. Alternate Side is completely different but I liked it too. I liked getting to know Nora and following her journey. I know Quindlen has a lot of books and now I’m curious if they are more like this one or like Every Last One. Either way, I’d like to read them as well. I definitely recommend Alternate Side.

“If nobody can tell the difference between real and fake, who cares if fake is what you’re showing?”

Score another one for Anna Quindlen. Often prodigious writers lapse into formulas, becoming predictable, but not Quindlen, who brings a snappy, original tale to the reader every time. She makes us think, and she makes us like it. Big thanks go to Random House and Net Galley for letting me read it free and early. This book is for sale now.

The story is built around a controversy that develops around that most prized acquisition among financially successful New Yorkers: a parking place. Local ordinances have a Byzantine set of rules involving parking on alternate sides of the street, and the neighborhood’s homeowners are sick to death of going out to move the car. A privately owned parking lot leases spaces, but there aren’t enough to go around, and a seniority system makes some residents intense; think of the rent-controlled apartments that get passed down like family heirlooms, and then you’ll have the general idea.

Ultimately, however, the parking place is metaphor, and perhaps allegory, for other aspects of life that go much deeper, and the way Quindlen unspools it is not only deft, but also funny as hell in places.

New Yorkers will appreciate this novel, but others will too. This reviewer is one of those visitors that Quindlen’s characters regard with scorn, the people that pop into town, gawk, buy things, and then leave again. But I’m telling you that despite the title, this is not just—or even mainly—a book for New Yorkers.

The audience that will love this book hardest is bound to be people like the main characters: white middle-class readers old enough to have grown children. But the take-down of petit bourgeois assumptions and attitudes is sly, incisive, and clever as hell.

At one point I began highlighting, for example, the many ways in which the phrases “you people” and “these people” are wielded.

Here is a final word of caution: if you are contemplating divorce, this may tip you over the brink. On the other hand, maybe that’s just what you need.

Highly recommended to those that love strong fiction and occasionally are visited by that “crazy liberal guilt thing.”

For Anna Quindlen's Alternate Side I was torn between 4 and 5 stars. I went with 5 mainly because I think a well written character-driven novel that relies on the minutiae of every day life to propel the reader is largely underappreciated.

The world in which these people live are at least one tax bracket over mine, if not several, but the problems they face and the small day-to-day issues can be boiled down, at their heart, to basic human problems. They manifest differently in different communities, based on everything from socioeconomic group to ethnicity, race and region (within any country as well as between countries). If you can let yourself inhabit Nora Nolan's world without judging her or her neighborhood before the events play out, you will find a great deal with which to relate. As a very simple example, Neither I, my kids nor my grandchild have ever had a nanny/housekeeper. But I have had close friends who might babysit and/or provide the glue during times of difficulty, and those people would defend my family as fiercely as they would their own. The character of Charity reminded me of those people in a couple of the scenes. That said, there is certainly a difference between a family friend and a nanny/housekeeper, and those things are addressed in the book, not simply glossed over as everyone's normal.

I actually made myself read this a little slower than usual, I spread it out over 3 days, simply so I could inhabit their world a little longer. I enjoyed thinking about what I would or wouldn't have done, whether I agreed or disagreed with things (often the smallest of details). While I wouldn't want to live there in real life I absolutely enjoyed my stay there while reading the book.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes to read about how an event can expose the cracks and fissures in a community that otherwise seems to be united and rather monolithic. Between the story itself, prior to the event, showing that these cracks are already present, simply hidden, to the rapidity with which the small gaps become enormous valleys. If you prefer action to thoughts and internal reflection then this might not be for you. What little action there is is brief and largely unseen.

Reviewed from a copy made available through Goodreads First Reads.

Random House and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Alternate Side. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Life on their little dead end street in New York City has been a haven for Nora Nolan. Now that their twins have gone off to college, Nora and Charlie soon discover cracks in their marriage. After a repetitive occurrence leads to a shocking violent act, how will the tight knit neighborhood respond? Will Nora's eyes be opened to an alternate future for herself and her family?

Alternate Side is a character study of the neighborhood in which Nora Nolan lives. Readers will be able to relate to the dynamics of this small group of individuals, especially in how their social issues, attitudes, and perceptions relate to the larger world. There is a clear picture as to Nora's moral compass and her character is well developed. The parking lot was a good metaphor, in that the changes it goes through mimics what happens in the actual neighborhood. The problem that I had with the book was the fact that the conflict is created by characters that are not fully realized. I never really quite got a feeling for the rest of the neighbors, so the conflict just seemed to be there in order to move the story in a certain direction. Usually a big fan of Anna Quindlen, Alternate Side is definitely not one of her best works. For these reasons, I would be hesitant to recommend it to other readers.

Anna Quindlen delivers a captivating, slowly burning story involving trepidation in a neighborhood and a family that begins with a parking place. As more secrets are revealed, the unraveling of relationships that strengthens others is set among the clashes of the varying socioeconomic statuses of families in one community.

Quindlen's writing captures authentic issues and relationships in neighborhoods and families today, a realistic portrait of modern society. This story portrays the "alternate sides" of how characters view situations, dependent on their life situations. A timely novel, this moving story centers class, money, and discovery of one's true purpose.

Thank you to Netgalley, Random House, and Anna Quindlen for an ARC.

I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Upper West Side NYC meets with petty neighborhood jealousy. A supposedly well educated and classy group of people squabble over a parking space and what results is a horrific act of violence. This is the premise of Anna Quindlen’s new book.

This tale is told beautifully , the author does not disappoint in her writing of this book. The story is so well written in prose that went down like a fine red wine. With that said the book was slow moving for me and while I did enjoy the book and the characters, especially Nora, it just took a while to get into. Nora was my favorite character, I would love to have her job, my dream job has always been to work in a museum and live in NYC. Would I love to be married to Charlie? No thanks ! The author examines and delves into the heart of this family and what it takes for Nora to keep it all together as a wife, mother and working woman. As Nora’s life unravels her character becomes stronger and this is what I took away from this story; as women we are separate beings as well as mothers and wives.

While this book was about a tragic incident it was also a story about a woman who finds out whi she really is and what she really wants in life.

3.5 stars. The first twelve percent of this novel drops so many names it’s dizzying. You learn the name of everyone in the neighborhood, including children and dogs. I was keeping notes so I could remember in case anything ever actually happened. MY GOD GET TO THE STORY.

There is a lot of funny commentary about marriage and the quirks of living in New York City. It turns out that, while eventually there is an inciting incident that pits neighbor against neighbor, really, the real story is about being a New Yorker, race and class, and what it means to be married over the long haul.

Nora and Charlie Nolan have been married for twenty-five years and have a pretty damn good life living in a dead-end cul de sac where everyone knows everyone. Told from Nora’s perspective, we get funny observations about what it means to be married to a man in his early fifties: “All the men seemed more attentive at dinner parties these days because they needed hearing aids and refused to get them.”

I loved Quindlen’s book Black and Blue, in part because that had instant tension and this fun thing that I like to call “plot.” She’s obviously a hugely gifted writer, and while eventually I liked this story, it took perseverance.

Thanks so much to NetGalley for the opportunity to review this novel.

This is my first Anna Quindlen fiction book. I really liked it and as a recent empty-nester, related to the main character, Nora, and the issues she and her husband were going through. This is definitely a privileged world--it made me think how difficult it must be to afford anything like even a middle-class existence in NYC--but I love reading about rich people in New York City. It also did a good job of hinting at the hard-working people that hold up those existences (the people who can only afford to live in an SRO despite having jobs).

All the main characters were extremely well-drawn and real (not so much the two bosses Nora deals with, but they were both funny, too). I felt like I was there on the dead-end street dealing with the little irritations of daily life and a long marriage and "now what?" I think this captured a certain melancholy very well.

When the book was done, I still wasn't sure how much I liked Nora - but I went back and re-read portions again and haven't stopped thinking about it, because it was so good.

Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen is a character driven, contemporary fiction book about Nora and Charlie, who live in an insular upper-class cul-de-sac neighborhood in New York. The neighbors have all lived there for some time, watched each other's children grow up, held neighborhood parties etc. They don't like to let anyone "in" their little world, which is inhabited by folks who seem quite set and snobbish in their outlooks. Then, an act of unexpected violence sets everything awry.

Nora is the narrator of the book; a book which I really didn't care for at all for the first two-thirds of it. Why should I care about these self-centered snobs and their mundane lives, people who are so hard to relate to? I didn't. The last third of the book brought out Ms. Quindlen's beautiful prose as Nora contemplates what made everything fall apart, in her marriage, in the neighborhood. That was worth waiting for.

A rather disappointing book to those who are familiar with Anna Quindlen's other works and the power and skill with which she can write. Three stars for me on this one.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House for allowing me to read an e-copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen is a highly recommended sensitive novel of a marriage and a neighborhood in crisis.

Nora Nolan and her husband Charlie have been married for twenty five years. They have raised twins Rachel and Oliver, who are now in college, in their tight-knit New York City neighborhood of town homes on a dead end street on the Upper West Side. Nora is the director of a jewelry museum; Charlie is an investment banker. While outwardly they appear to have a stable marriage, there is no passion and really just a tolerance of each other born of a long association. Nora loves living in NYC, while Charlie has become tired of it and wants to sell their home and move out of the city. The two have a truce of sorts, and each stands clearly on their own side of the issue.

The novel opens with Charlie finally getting a coveted parking spot in the neighborhood outdoor lot. Achieving a spot in the lot is a major coup in this neighborhood of affluent home owners. Quindlen continues for the first third of the novel to establish the place and setting. The neighborhood has a village-like atmosphere, where the homeowners have set neighborhood celebrations. They are all able to overlook one another’s annoying behaviors, secrets, and setbacks until an act of violence tears the neighborhood apart and highlights class, economic, and racial tensions in the neighborhood and widens the gulf between Nora and Charlie.

This is an excellent, finely crafted character-driven novel about a relationship and an incident that revealed the hidden resentments and differences between spouses and neighbors. The open arguments and disagreements, especially between Nora and Charlie, expose their true feelings and desires. Nora is a well-developed complex character who is wonderfully depicted, as she explores her feelings, past and present, while working through her feelings over the incident that tears the neighborhood apart.

The title refers to the alternate side street parking rules present in NYC, as well as some other urban areas, and the alternate sides the neighbors, and Nora and Charlie, are on regarding the violent incident on the block. And the violent act is tied into the parking lot, and street parking in the city. Parking can bring out the worst in many areas. (Admittedly, even my own neighborhood can have it share of disgruntled homeowners over street parking.)

Quindlen does introduce a lot of characters in Alternate Side, almost too many, so you do need to pay attention at the beginning to who is who and their relationship to Nora.
I particularly liked one comment a friend made to Nora: "You stayed together for almost twenty-five years, and you had two great kids. Your marriage was a huge success. Don’t let anybody tell you different."

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Random House Publishing Group

Nora Nolan has always felt a kinship with New York City and wants to live nowhere else. Her husband Charlie doesn’t feel the same way. He’s always trying to convince her to move from the city, mostly because he hasn’t found success in NYC and thinks he’ll do better elsewhere. Their twins have left home and are living at college now. The dead end street where they live is a tight knit group of friends and those not well thought of. Most have dogs and Nora and Charlie’s dog, Homer, opens up channels of communication with many of the neighbors. They all mourn together when one of them loses a dog. One of the neighbors, Jack, has anger issues and often that anger is directed at the area’s handyman, Ricky. When a dispute over parking spaces erupts into violence, none of their lives will be the same.

I have read many of Anna Quindlen’s books and she’s a favorite author of mine. I couldn’t be more surprised that I can only give her newest book 3 stars. I’ve read all of the glowing reviews but personally I struggled through this book. I had so much trouble keeping the characters straight and then realized that I just didn’t care for any of them and they all just blended together. These are people of privilege and they have lives that others would envy. And yet they aren’t satisfied and constantly whine. There’s a line in the book that I can’t find now which said something to the effect that you shouldn’t whine on a luxury cruise and that’s what I felt these people were doing. And I just couldn’t get interested in their “plight” at all.

That’s not to say that there weren’t parts of this book that I enjoyed. I loved the dog Homer who loved every minute of his walks around the neighborhood. I liked the exchanges between Nora and the “homeless” man. I enjoyed some of the humor that Ms. Quindlen includes in this book. Possibly I expected something else. The previous books by this author that I’ve read, such as “Black and Blue” and “One True Thing”, were much darker books and elicited strong emotions for me. The only scene that elicited emotion from me in this book was the one involving Homer.

Sorry, Ms. Quindlen, but this book isn’t at the top of my favorites of yours.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

Wow, I loved this book. There are sentences that will live forever in my mind, "Marriages were like balloons: a few went suddenly pop but more often than not the air slowly leaked out until it was a sad, wrinkled little thing with no lift." That is what this books is about. We watch the balloon of Nora and Charlie's marriage in a 25 year leak. They live in New York City in a special place. It is an elegant dead end alley with houses that daily increase in value. The street is a neighborhood made up of all kinds of people. There are jerks and also real people. Nora is a privileged mother of teenaged children when we meet her, she is a smart, caring and thoughtful person. I read the reviews and I can understand the derogatory comments of the elitest life style. These people had big jobs, money, nannies, a handyman, and a social life. So what. They were real people and Quindlen did a magnificent job of painting the neighbors, children, staff and their dogs. This book is a masterpiece.

I want to thank the publisher, Random House, and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
I have not read any books from this author, Anna Quindlen before, but I really enjoyed her writing style as it was so easy to read. This story is about the neighbors living on a dead end street in Manhattan. The story is told through the eyes of Nora Nolan. I find her thoughts and observations about life and marriage very much on point and very funny. The title is very befitting as it show cases the lives of the have and the have-nots. The main event is an incident about parking spaces, which is so typical of New York and this event results in neighbors picking sides, but also put an magnifying glass on their own “perfect lives”.
Some reviewers have commented that they did not like the characters, but I did like very much, not because they were necessarily likeable but because they were so real and not exaggerated to enhance the storyline. We all know these characters in real life. I highly recommend this book.

I adore Anna Q and will read anything she writes -- and my home library proves it. I've loved her newspaper columns most of all, but enjoyed her early novels too. ("One True Thing" is probably my favorite.) I had high hopes for this new novel, but honestly struggled to get into it, and then to finish it. It had a slow start, and the characters didn't grab me or pull me along. That said, Quindlen's fine writing still shines here -- and makes it worth a read if you're a fan -- but I didn't find the story or the characters all that engaging, unlike her other work.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.
Life on "the block", a dead end street in Manhattan, is a microcosm of all neighborhoods. People move in, join the barbeques and parties, the children grow up, complacency gradually takes over. Nora and Charlie have skimmed along, just letting life happen. Getting a parking space makes Charlie jump for joy. Then a horrific attack happens, and reality begins to set in. We're flies on the wall, watching their marriage and "the block" deteriorate.
At first, I felt nothing for Nora; she's an upper middle class wife and mother who plays at having a career. The more I read, the more I felt her. She seemed happy on the surface, but underneath I think she wanted more, but didn't know what more was.
This story doesn't have the highs and lows of high adventure; it has everyday life.

Anna Quindlen is certainly the best writer in the family drama genre - her latest novel is mostly a character study and a portrait of a marriage.
I loved the setting in this book and was familiar with all the places mentioned in New York City.
I wasn't that fond of most of the characters, but I feel as though I know them inside and out, and I thought about them at odd times of the day when I wasn't reading.
A tragic event happened in the insular neighborhood block where they lived, and their lives changed accordingly, but I can't say I feel badly for any of the residents.
It was interesting to read about each character's motivation and how they interacted with each other, what goes on behind the closed doors within a closeknit community which thinks they know everything about everyone.

Anna Quindlen shares a story of marriage and what it takes to keep relationships from breaking apart in ALTERNATE SIDE. Nora and her husband Charlie seem to have a charmed life. They own a fabulous home on a dead-end block in New York City. They have twins that are doing well in college and they share the friendship of good neighbors on their quiet street. Then, a terrible accident shakes things up in the neighborhood. Relationships fracture and problems radiate into Nora’s everyday life. ALTERNATE SIDE offers a sensitive look at marriage, motherhood and holding on to individuality at a turning point in life.

This is the first book that I have read from Anna Quindlen since “Black and Blue” and I was expecting more. The prose is beautiful and well written. I found it to be quite moving at times. But, this didn’t make up for what I found to be unlikeable characters and a weak story line. I did not like Nora or Charlie. The neighbors weren’t even that enjoyable. Likeable characters are not necessary for me to enjoy a book. I quite like flawed and unlikeable characters. What I don’t like are weak characters and I felt that Nora and Charlie were whiney, unsympathetic and at times even annoying. I also felt that the author hit me over the head with the fact that the neighborhood was on a dead-end street. Numerous times this is mentioned. Street signs, explanations to people that are lost or looking for the park, conversations between the neighbors themselves. I got it. It’s a dead-end street. A thinly drawn parallel to the dead-end relationships Nora finds herself in. And then there’s the “accident”. No spoilers here, but the majority of the characters refer to what happened as an “accident”. I didn’t see it that way. I found it to be a deliberate, violent act. While not unenjoyable to read, I felt like the book just kind of plodded along and didn’t really go anywhere. This was a 3/5 star read for me. The beauty and elegance of the prose is the only reason this book got three stars. It just wasn’t enough to overcome the dead-end feeling of the book as a whole. I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review. My opinions are my own.

Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen is not my type of book. I am a fan of Ms. Quindlen's writing, but this story was just too slow for me, I did not care for a single character. I kept reading and reading to the end, hoping to be drawn in or find something that would make me care one bit about any of the characters, but it never happened. It isn't that I don't enjoy a nice, leisurely read, this one just did not seem to hold my attention. Another of Ms. Quindlen's books that I found to be on the slower side was Miller's Valley, but unlike with this one, I grew to love the characters, the setting, and the slow telling matched the tempo of the town.

Affluent and privileged people can have troubles too, and even the slightest first world problems can uncover cracks in fragile relationships. Anna Quindlen sets her novel titled, Alternate Side, on a dead-end street in Manhattan. Nora Nolan and her husband Charlie have a great life together until they don’t. Dramatic inequality is evident every day in Manhattan, and Quindlen provides different characters in this novel that describe the consequences of economic differences. Quindlen describes the dream of life in Manhattan grounded in the reality of marriage and neighbors and what can happen to anyone.

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

A book written about the haves, and have-nots. In the modern world it's all about accumulating things, A bigger house, a newer car, the best jobs. Their is nothing wrong with this. However, getting lost in this makes you forget that at the end of the day, whether you have the best of everything or not, we're all human. We all have feelings. We're all working to better ourselves and our families. Sometimes the act of human kindness, love without judging, and seeing the other side gets lost. This is a remarkable book that makes you truly think about what's important. A kind of walk a mile in my shoes story.
5 Stars

A slice of life novel by Anna Quindlen focusing on a well-off married couple living on a quiet dead end street in New York. Their life seems great until something happens on their street, and they find themselves on opposite sides.

I struggled a little bit to get into this novel, but once I did I enjoyed it. I liked the little community she created and all of the personalities that inhabited it. I felt like she really thought about the details. This was a strong 3.5 stars for me, but I couldn't quite convince myself to round it up to 4. Close though.

I've read everything Quindlen has written, so I am obviously a big fan. I wanted so much to love this book, but I just didn't. There were some bright moments and interesting character studies, but in general, it failed to hold my interest since the "violent action," as one reader called it, doesn't happen until half-way through the book. These are not interesting people aside from maniac George. I liked parts of it, so I have to give it four stars, but overall, it was....dull.

Nora and Charlie Nolan have been married almost 25 years. Their kids are Rachel and Oliver, twins who are away at their respective colleges. The Nolans own one of the brownstones on a dead end block in New York City. Where one of the buildings should be, there is a gap. Apparently, years ago one of the buildings had burned to the ground, but was never rebuilt. Instead, this space has been used as a parking lot for several of the buildings' inhabitants. There's only 6 available parking spaces, and to score one of them is no mean feat. As the book begins, Charlie is elated that he has finally been offered this exclusive perk.

Nora simply is a New Yorker down to her bones. She can't fathom not living in The City, and refuses to even consider it. Husband Charlie, however, is constantly trying to lure Nora into selling the brownstone and moving out of New York City. Even though their property would most likely sell for much more than they paid for it originally, Nora doesn't want to know. She loves everything about the city, warts and all...except for the rats. In fact, Nora walks a long way to work each morning, forgoing taxis or subway trains, enduring all kinds of weather. She also runs on a regular basis. Charlie works in finance but feels like he's been unjustly passed over for promotions. Nora works as the manager of a unique jewelry museum. They have a nanny/housekeeper named Charity who worked in their household since the twins were born. Everyone on the block "has money," although most of it is in their houses.

The stress of the parking issue in NYC is a major factor in this story. Scoring the parking space in the adjacent lot was supposed to be a thing of joy, but a pivotal event takes place there that has a negative rippling effect on the block's inhabitants.

I normally love books that take place in NYC, but this one just fell a bit flat for me. Perhaps I didn't feel a connection or liking to any particular character. The writing style was of good quality, so perhaps this story will reach others in a way that I couldn't appreciate.

Thank you to Random House who provided an advance reader copy via NetGalley.

Alternate side started so slowly that I almost abandoned it. I'm glad I didn't as it did get better. It's strength is that it will make the reader think about life, decisions, and how much choices made at a young age impact your years. Is status quo easier than choosing change? Facing reality is difficult after it has solidified. Also change impacts other's lives. Is changing brave or selfish? Will new and different be better?

Anna Quindlen’s writing is always smooth, insightful and honest. Her characters feel real, and although their lives may be conflicted, they forge on with a fair amount of hard-fought independence and a good dose of ironic humor. But unlike her other books, “Alternate Side” does not leave you feeling better for having read it. Instead you feel like these property-wealthy New Yorkers go about leading their lives of quiet desperation, sometimes getting a glimpse of what really matters but mostly quietly, casually, comfortably and matter-of-factly ensconced in the literal and metaphoric cul-de-sac of their own choosing. So-called Reality occasionally intrudes with parking woes, job or children or health issues, immigrant service people, rats, dog poop bags, SRO hotels, and the most sanitized version of a homeless person you’ll ever meet, but it all sloughs off, as very little “sticks” to anyone to make a difference. They are all Teflon people leading Teflon lives. For me the saddest and most depressing comparison is when a significant relationship just quietly fades away, like a sad, deflated balloon. Life goes on. No one cares enough to fight for anything. Makes you hear the old tune “Is that all there is” playing softly in the background. Too depressing for me!

I always enjoyed Anna Quindlen's work but confess I had not read her in years. This was remedied upon my picking up her latest novel, ALTERNATE SIDE. She always created realistic characters and demanding personal situations and those were both well evident here. A very relevant tale that tests the nature of a quiet neighborhood as well as a close-knit marriage via an act of unspeakable violence. What transpires next is something that will provoke discussion when certain choices are made by the principal characters.

The big event was more like a yawn. Nothing interesting happened for the first 100 pages. All backstory and the inner ramblings of a near post-middle ages woman who is boring and drifting along in life. I’ve never read this author’s novels before but I probably never will make that mistake again. I much prefer Anne Tyler because at least her stories are believable.

Anna Quindlen is one of my favorite authors and I was very much looking forward to this new book. I tried, but I simply could not get into the story. I didn’t care about the neighborhood parking lot, the obnoxious neighbor, or the main characters. I cared so little that I closed the book about a third of the way through.

Anna Quindlen really fooled me this time. After years spent reading and evaluating thousands of books and scripts as possible movie projects, I can almost always find the bread crumbs along the way and figure out the ending of a story by half way through the first act. Not this story. By the end of act two we were reeling off in another direction entirely and I never saw it coming. The beauty of it is that our main character, Nora, is having the same experience as we are and we go through it with her. She is a woman with New York City's current running through her veins but has managed to carve out a small town existence in her little corner of it. And as happens in any small town, things aren't always as they seem. The book has a little bit of a slow start but gains momentum and draws us into her world. Following Nora on her journey is a worthwhile trip. Anna Quindlan fans will not be disappointed.

I especially enjoyed the combination of wet and seriousness in this book. As an ex New Yorker, I really enjoyed her descriptions of her neighborhood, even though I live there in the 70s in the apartment. I thought her rendering of a long-term marriage it is quite appropriate, unfortunately.

I received this from netgalley.com in exchange for a review.

From the blurb .. "The tensions in a tight-knit neighborhood—and a seemingly happy marriage—are exposed by an unexpected act of violence". And that 'act of violence' was about the only interesting thing in the book.

I like character driven stories but this one didn't capture my attention, dry reading. I skimmed the last half of the book to get the gist of it.

Very well written but the characters are just not likeable. I could understand why their lives were not satisfying, I did slog through the whole book but won't be reading it again. Wait to check it out from the library.

In a nutshell, it was an interesting enough look at the genuine enough lives of people that are different enough from me to find enjoyable. And Ms. Quindlen’s superb writing makes it a worthwhile and quotable read.

Well-written, but surprisingly dull. I read almost half of the book, and then stopped. Very disappointing tale of a group of spoiled New Yorkers, who live in a cul-de-sac. and watch each other like hawks.