Sometime in the spring of 1982 Cynthia, a female of indeterminate age, cut out a New York Times book review of the latest John Cheever book, Oh What a Paradise It Seems.
It had been decided. She was going to enjoy this book. With her cut out review folded up and slipped into her pocket, she hopped on the M-30 72nd St. Crosstown bus and headed to her favorite bookstore.
We can’t be sure that picking up a book was the sole purpose of her trip crosstown. I like to think she stopped off to do some shopping, maybe she picked up a new spring coat, or a pair of loafers. But there is no doubt she patronized a news stand for a pack of cigarettes and a cup of classic NYC coffee, you know, the greek cup kind, hand-wrapped in a stack of thin napkins.
If we want to push it a bit, we could imagine Cynthia stopping off to meet an illicit lover for a drink — a tasty plot point in the story of her life, surely. Upper East Side affairs. White table cloths. Martinis. Unspoken hatred in a quiet marriage. We can pull back though, Cynthia just wanted to read her book.
After picking up the new Cheever she once again carefully creased the article right down the middle, and placed it along with her bus ticket into the back flap of her crispy new book — forgetting them both to time.
She only made it a handful of pages before inserting her bus ticket into the book to mark her page.
Back at her apartment, her entire life unfolds alongside this half read Cheever book, sitting dormant on the shelf for over forty years. Love. Hate. Birth. Death. Big joyous moments. Deep valley lows. Stretches of nothingness. An ambient life filled with constant diegetic sound. If only books could talk.
Forty years later I picked this up at Strand and took it for a ride. Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night.
This is incredible.