City of Strangers
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
Paul Metzger's life is in a state of disrepair; a writer in his mid-thirties, he is divorced and underacheiving. One winter afternoon he travels into New York to visit three people; an elder half-brother who wants little to do with him; a disgraced, dying father, once infamous as a Nazi sympathiser; and an ex-wife whom Paul still loves.
But Paul soon realises that he is being watched, and it is this fourth, unplanned and violent, encounter that will chanage more than one life, forever.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A novel as grim as it is extraordinary, MacKenzie's debut tells the story of two estranged brothers at odds on how to view their Nazi-sympathizer father. Paul Metzger has troubles: a struggling writer with a dying father and an intense longing for his recently ex-wife, he's also estranged from his much older brother. In what ends up being more than a random act of violence, Paul is pummeled while trying to stop two men from assaulting a boy outside his Brooklyn apartment. Shortly after, Paul's father, Frank an early Nazi sympathizer who retains some notoriety decades later dies, and Paul receives a lucrative offer to write a book about his father. Meanwhile, Paul's hedge fund brother, Ben, under investigation for insider trading, faces prison time, and one of the goons who beat Paul pursues him across the city. All of this leads to unexpected turns that shed light on the major characters. MacKenzie sets up a New York rampant with alienation and misunderstanding, and his visceral narrative, powered by taut prose and braced with sturdy philosophical and psychological underpinnings, is a winner.
