“You are who you let in,” muses the main character who is dealing with the regular appearance of a gnome-like argumentative man living in her apartment. The Visitors explores our modern sense of fear, loneliness, and identity in a world where the 1% strive and the rest struggle. C is trying to save her business, her relationship with her best friend, and her health, while living in a world she feels disconnected to; she is sometimes a visitor to her own life. While an excellent concept and some beautiful writing, this one ultimately was too disjointed by the end. ( )

This book takes place within blocks of the Occupy Wall Street encampment but its characters have no more than a lazy curiousity about the movement. One character is a hedge fund manager, another owns a failing store --she can't pay the bills but is about to hire an assistant. The fact that she won't be able to pay the assistant? Not her problem, apparently. This sounds ripe for satire, right? Two leaches getting their comeuppance as the shouts of Occupiers rise in the background? Wrong. We're meant to like these hyper-privileged, self-obsessed women who personify everything Occupy resisted.

It's not that the characters are flawed and we're meant to maintain an ironic distance from their failings. The narrator mentions the illegal police use of kettling protesters in the early days of the Occupy protest: "those arrested are herded to precinct headquarters and issued a carton of milk, a peanut butter sandwich, and a misdemeanor for blocking traffic on the Brooklyn overpass" (78). In reality, people were assaulted, seriously injured, and the city had to pay millions in lawsuits for their use of this violation of civil rights. Later, the narrator tries to use the UN as a metaphor but fails because the author doesn't understand that the US has one of the largest outstanding UN debts and does not, in fact, "disproportionately financ[e]" the organization" (177). The book is full of blithe ignorance and callous indifference to facts like that. In a book that's trying to make some kind of muddled political point, it's naive at best, deceptive at worst. It's just a crap book.

Formally, the book was interesting (as are almost all of the books And Other Stories publish -- such a great publisher!) and the writing itself was, at times, engaging, but that wasn't enough to salvage this mess. ( )

Not my cup of tea, as it turns out. Some interesting ideas in here, but not much of a plot, and the characters were not those I could find a way to care much about.

I'm sure this will appeal to plenty of folks, but alas I found this to be something of a navel-gazing story of New York folk trying to find their place in a callous world - not exactly unexplored territory. Further, this is the type of book beloved by those who will tell you how smart it is so that when you cannot find it enjoyable, or particularly enlightening, they can hammer you with the fact that you just don't "get it." Which is fine. But other such books (The Last Samurai comes to mind) are often more willing to include more engaging plots, characters, or both. I had trouble finding much of that here, though the mysterious gnome did occasionally introduce some personality (of a sort) into the proceedings. And as a personal gripe, I think I've had enough of novels who cannot even name the main character beyond a single letter (though this may just be a pet peeve of mine). And as a personal gripe, I think I've had enough of novels who cannot even name the main character beyond a single letter (though this may just be a pet peeve of mine).

All that said, I don't wish to dissuade anyone from reading, as there were indeed some interesting musings here. But as a novel, this one felt lacking to me. ( )

AH I could tell by this wonderfully weird and perfect cover (and it's also the perfect cover for this book) that I would love the wonderfully weird contents. The back cover also had me when it mentioned the Darkest Timeline which, correct me if I'm wrong, can only remind me of my favorite show of all time. By page twenty or so, I was grinning like the little troll from the Darkest Timeline (probably the troll is kin to the gnome). AH the weird plot, the weird main character, the weirdie little gnome man floating around... possibly hallucination, possibly not. The main character called C is a crafty person who also owns an art supply store in NYC when the economy collapses in 2008. But something is much awry with C, C is also collapsing... or maybe reality is collapsing. Such a puzzle! Such a whirlwind! The ending hits on at least three levels! As a bonus, as the book starts, it looks like old computer code on a black screen, the plot hinting at some sort of hack attack. It's all great stuff. In interviews the writer has mentioned that this is a systems novel crossed with a domestic novel. I'm in awe that someone who has a bachelor's degree in math can also be a genius with words. Which might be the one thing that sways people from this book, as I know it was way over my head at times, especially when it discusses the stock market or hacking. The nuanced smartness levels of this book might be off putting to some readers -- but I was along for the ride. I love a flailing, alienated young woman story, especially if you add something extra (ie: gnomes.) This writer is extremely smart but I'll follow this writer to any book she decides to write. Luckily I get to go back to the first novel she wrote a couple years ago. I'm so thankful for this weird little book and it's also FOR SURE going on the list that is one of my favorite genres: 'She's Not Feeling Good At All' ( https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/153374.She_s_Not_Feeling_Good_at_All )
Set this on the shelf next to:
Luster - Raven Leilani
A Line Made By Walking - Sara Baume
Milk Fed - Melissa Broder
Overthrow - Caleb Crain
Red Pill - Hari Kunzru
Mr Robot (another favorite TV show) ( )

A strange and challenging little novel. C is an artist, a weaver, the daughter of a Yugoslavian immigrant mother, and now the owner of a New York City art supply store spiraling into debt. When the story opens, we have just crested into the worst of the 2008 economic crash, which C weathered along with a divorce and an emergency hysterectomy. She had some success with monumental woven art pieces that were sold and celebrated, but has distanced herself from that world of dealers and patrons. On the other hand, she seems equally uncomfortable with the politics and revolutions of the Occupy activists camping on Wall Street. She both envies her best friend since childhood, Zo, for the wealth shes wrangled through Finance, and cannot level with the implications and processes of the system. She is a woman increasingly unstuck from her own life, and also, a tiny floating man has appeared in her apartment, who may be a hallucination, but seems strangely knowledgeable about the ecoterrorist cyber-attacks that the news shows crippling cities around the world.

That's a lot of concept for what is ultimately a story of two women and the relationship they have with themselves and each other. The confusion and alienation they feel as they try to find, or choose to loose, their feet is palpable in Jessi Jezewska Steven's prose. It took me maybe the first third of the book to grasp its pattern, and voice, but by then the suggestions scattered throughout of what was actually about to happen began to coalesce. I think one could read this as an indictment of late-stage capitalism, but the little gnome's ongoing commentary makes me think it's more about the challenges of simply being a human in a world striving for order. Not that I really know what was up with that little guy in the first place, but I don't mind a mystery. ( )