The Gods of New York, by Jonathan Mahler

A witty, fast paced roller-coaster ride through 1980s New York.

New York in the 1970s was a city in debt and seemingly terminal decline. Its manufacturing base had been eviscerated. Poverty was endemic and crime at an all time high. New York needed money. Then came the 1980s, and Reaganomics and deregulation. Boom! The town was back in business. It pivoted from old school industry to computerised finance. Digitising stocks and money put them on steroids. People became extremely wealthy.

Gods of New York covers four years at the end of the 80s: 1986-1989. Mayor Ed Koch sought and won an historic third term. But there was much strife afflicting the city - racially motivated violence, the AIDS crisis, high level corruption, poverty, homelessness, drug addiction and the mentally unwell living on the streets. For every societal ill there was a charismatic if controversial advocate. The list of such characters is mesmerising: Black activist Reverend Al Sharpton, AIDS crisis agitator Larry Kramer, film maker Spike Lee, disease specialist Anthony Fauci and crime fighting lawyer Rudy Giuliani, to name a few. There are also plenty of less famous characters, such as Joyce Brown, a homeless woman turned celebrity. The city had tried to have her institutionalised, but she fought through the courts to be allowed to return to the street.

Hovering above the city is Donald Trump, a glittering success and a figure of undisputed economic prowess. Throughout the late 80s Trump would back himself into a corner by over investing in the Atlantic City casino scene, just at a time when punters had no money and were pulling in their spending. And yet the banks continued to lend him staggering amounts of money. His debts became so eye-watering that the banks essentially couldn’t let him fail.

Author and journalist Jonathan Mahler does a brilliant job of building a compelling narrative around the events, scandals and crimes of the day. (A lot of time is devoted to harrowing crime cases.) He has a witty style and clever turn of phrase, able to distill the cultural and economic movements of the time into pithy one liners. The picture that emerges of New York is of a place that is terribly fractured and extreme. A city of dreadful poverty, entrenched racism, drug addiction, homelessness and mental illness. Why, one wonders, so many problems in a city that is an economic engine room of the world economy? The book doesn’t end on a cheery note, with Jonathan Mahler asserting that these divisions, between rich and poor, black and white, have only become more entrenched.  

An entertaining and insightful portrait of a complex city. New York may be cruel and unforgiving, but it produces extraordinary people and cultural movements. 

The Gods of New York, by Jonathan Mahler. Published by Hutchinson Heinemann. $36.99

NOV25

A Room Above a Shop, by Anthony Shapland

Two men embark on a precarious love affair in late 1980s Wales.

The late 1980s, a small village in Wales. B (main characters are identified by first initial) is a somewhat aimless young man setting out in life. M is eleven years older and owns the local ironmongery business, which he inherited from his parents. They meet at a local pub during a boozy Christmas event and M invites B out on something between a date and an expedition. They visit a scenic hill and share a sandwich and a thermos of tea. They are awkward around each other, yet there is a connection. “Few words. More gestures than chat.” The two men begin a secret relationship, B taking on a job at M’s hardware store and moving into the spare room above the shop. It’s a time of political strife. The AIDS crisis has exploded and homophobia is rampant, especially in a small town. The men exist simultaneously in two different worlds, one of intimacy and togetherness above the shop, but publicly playing socially acceptable roles. 

A Room Above a Shop is sparsely written, mirroring the fractured, hidden lives of its characters. Anthony Shapland describes a fragile intimacy, eked out in the shadows. The atmosphere is one of fear and vigilance, ensuring the right gestures are made and that secrets are not unwittingly betrayed. It’s a reminder of how societal rules and moral codes can hollow out life and soul, and yet love can still find a way . Readers of Claire Keegan will enjoy this brittle, haunting novel about forbidden love. 

A Room Above a Shop, by Anthony Shapland. Published by Granta. $29.99

NOV25

A Quiet Place, by Seicho Matsumoto

A wife dies suddenly. Are suspicious circumstances involved?

Tsuneo Asai is a government bureaucrat working in the agriculture department. He has spent many years studiously doing all the right things to advance his career. One day while on a business trip he gets a phone call. The news is not good. His wife, who has long had a heart condition, has suddenly died. Discombobulated and shocked, he leaves the business meeting and goes about organising the funeral and other details. 

The relationship with his wife, Eiko, had not been a particularly close one. She was his second wife, and their intimate life together had pretty much ended. However, there were details about her death that don’t seem quite right. Why was she in a rather seedy part of town, where there are hotels that serve as a rendezvous point for secret lovers? Could Eiko have had a secret lover?

As Asai begins to investigate this possible double life, more and more clues point to a tantalisingly complex story. 

Famed Japanese master crime writer Seicho Matsumoto published A Quiet Place in 1971. It appears now as a Penguin Modern Classic, with a 2016 translation by Louise Heal Kawai. There are many twists and turns in this gripping crime mystery, and the story takes a shocking, completely unexpected turn half way, pivoting from a tale of a wife’s sudden death to a psychological thriller along the lines of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, The Tell-Tale Heart. Gripping and seductive  crime fiction.

A Quiet Place, by Seicho Matsumoto. Published by Penguin Modern Classics. $24.99

NOV25

Freewheeling: Essays on Cycling, by Various Authors

Twelve authors tackle the subject of cycling, incorporating a range of different perspectives. 

I am usually suspicious of these novelty essay collections, but being an avid cyclist I thought I would give the book a go. Happily, this collection is a delight.

Aniefiok Ekpoudom discusses Black activism through protest rides; John McGregor cryptically spins a tale about finding the hospital his mother is undergoing a procedure at; Annie Lord hires a Lime Bike and blissfully rides home safely after a party; Mina Holland describes the joys of a stationary exercise bike, with references to her hamster’s spinning wheel. Other essays concentrate on family dramas, personal growth and health scares, all seen through the prism of cycling.

Each essay is an engaging autobiographical piece, refreshingly open and honest. The recurring theme is how the act of cycling can heal body, mind and soul. Cycling takes us out of worrying about the future and ruminating on the past, the bumpy saddle keeping the rider focused on the present. It’s a form of mindfulness.

Riders and non-riders alike will find much to console and comfort in these pages.

Freewheeling: Essays on Cycling, by Various Authors. Published by Daunt Books. ISBN: 9781917092067

NOV25

The Gift of Not Belonging, by Rami Kaminski

A psychiatrist explains why some people harbor a horror of the group

Dr Rami Kaminski is an American psychiatrist with decades of clinical experience. As a child Kaminski always felt at odds with school groups and teams. He was not a joiner. This did not mean he was lonely or solitary. He felt happy and fulfilled on his own. He could maintain solid  friendships on a one-on-one basis. But force him to join a sporting team or go on a school camp and he was beside himself with worry and stress. 

After years of treating similarly disposed people in his clinical practice, Kaminski has come up for a title for this condition: otrovert. Extroverts look outward, introverts inwards. An otrovert is someone who looks in a different direction to the crowd or group. (Otro means “other” in Spanish while “vert” means direction.) Extroverts and even introverts are communal people, meaning they find safety and belonging in the group. Otroverts find no such comfort. In fact, they find the opposite. 

What is the reason for this discomfort, even anxiety? Communal people don’t see individuals in the group. They see more of an homogenous single entity. For example, you could say they see the group as being the colour blue, and if the individual considers themself blue too, then they can easily fit into the group. Otroverts, on the other hand, don’t see sameness. They see everyone as an overwhelming separate entity. They can’t melt into the group, but must negotiate every person as an individual. It brings an uncomfortable intensity to all group interactions. 

The Gift of Not Belonging, by Rami Kaminski. Published by Scribe Publications. $32.99

NOV 25

Old North Melbourne, by Fiona Gatt

North Melbourne’s First Fifty Years

Fiona Gatt’s history of the inner city suburb of North Melbourne covers its first fifty years, from the 1850s through to 1900. The area has long been noted for its working class roots, and Gatt provides the data to show it was a refuge for the poor and unskilled. Notable was the strong presence of the Irish working class, often living precariously and on intermittent wages. Due to the hardships of the times, alcohol abuse was prevalent, a way of dulling life’s miseries. An extraordinary amount of pubs - seemingly one on every corner - littered the area. 

It wasn’t all desperate living, however. North Melbourne had its captains of industry, creating businesses and factories, and many were successful, also putting themselves forward in civic life and contributing to the suburb’s politics. Gatt also shows that a large percentage of women were successful at business, running shops or industries from home. Of note was local feminist Brettena Smyth, who agitated for women’s right to vote and make their own reproductive choices.

North Melbourne evolved in a haphazard way during this period. There was no building code, so people simply knocked up whatever they felt fit - in a lot of cases tin sheds or shoddily put together wooden houses, not built to last. It wasn’t until the 1890s that building codes would be introduced. Street life could also be hazardous, especially with the rise of larikinism during economic hard times - swarms of bored male youths stirring up trouble. Sometimes it wasn’t safe to leave the house.

Old North Melbourne is a fascinating, meticulously researched history that chronicles North Melbourne’s economic, cultural and topographical roots. North Melbournites will be charmed to see recognisable street names pop up again and again. 

A welcome addition to the historic literature on Melbourne.

Old North Melbourne, by Fiona Gatt. Published by Australian Scholarly Publishing. $44. 

OCT 2025

Lady Living Alone, by Norah Lofts

A woman too frightened to be alone comes to regret the company she keeps.

Norah Lofts (1904-1983) was a British writer who specialised in historical fiction, but wrote occasional nail biting thrillers under the pseudonym Peter Curtis. Lady Living Alone was first published in 1945 and here gets a new printing from the British Library Women Writers series. 

Penelope Shadow is temperamentally fragile, almost timid. She’s not cut out for the practicalities of life and is a bit of a dreamer. One area of her life where she’s fully competent, however, is as a novelist. After a few false starts, she begins churning out best selling fiction. The money is soon coming in. But there is one problem. A single woman, she is forced to move out of her half-sister’s house and find her own accommodation. She has the money to buy a handsome house of her own, but is terrified of being alone in it. It’s her achilles heel. To try and assuage her fears, she hires staff, women to look after the housework, but they tend to leave. 

Then Penelope meets the young Irishman, Terence Munce. He is working as a menial at a rooming house she stays at. In a rash moment she asks him to come and work for her. Everything turns out smoothly. Penelope is back to hammering away at her typewriter, while the ever attentive Terry takes care of everything. Things take an unexpected turn when Terry professes to love Penelope and the two get married. All is well in this new if surprising arrangement, until Terry starts draining Penelope’s purse of funds at a great rate of knots. Ever forgiving, she makes allowances for Terry, until secrets emerge about her husband’s life and Penelope feels her life is imperilled.

Lady Living Alone is a solidly written domestic drama about a vulnerable and too eager-to-please woman and her young, seemingly perfect but scheming husband. The tension is wonderfully sustained right up to the last page and the novel gives vivid glimpses of life in 1930s Britain (the book is set in the previous decade to which it was published). The steadily darkening plot will remind readers of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca and Elizabeth Von Arnim’s Vera, two novels about duplicitious, villainous husbands. 

A sturdy, page-turning thriller with valuable insights into British society in the 1930s.

Lady Living Alone, by Norah Lofts. Published by British Library Publishing. $22.99

OCT 2025