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Dec. 30th, 2021 11:30 pmAiden Polydoros' The City Beautiful is a book that runs on the strength of its hauntings.
The premise: Alter Rosen, a Jewish immigrant in turn-of-the-century Chicago, ends up investigating the mystery of missing young Jewish men after his friend (and crush) Yakov gets murdered at the World's Fair. Alter is already full-time haunted by the memories of his father, who died on the journey across the Atlantic, and the responsibilities he has to his mother and sister back in the Pale -- but that doesn't matter to Yakov's dybbuk, who soon becomes the latest and most literal ghost in Alter's life as his spirit shouts to Alter's for Revenge.
Alter turns for help to his only underworld connection, a bad-boy gang leader with whom he has History, and the two of them end up on a journey through the darkest parts of Chicago and also their own pasts in order to solve the mystery before Alter loses himself completely in Big Ghost Feelings.
I really dug how simultaneously evocative and grounded the setting was -- this is a book that's intensely Jewish, intensely about a Jewish community in a specific place and time, and is also really, really committed to its sinister industrial-era-fantasy-horror vibes, and the pairing works really well!
I also appreciated the character of Alter, I liked the messiness of his queer feelings and his religious feelings and his obligations and guilts, and that he had both a Crime backstory and the big gay feelings and was the most religious and community-enmeshed person in the book and that these things coexisted perfectly well and all remained true by the end. But most of the people around him felt more two-dimensional, including both Alter's gang-leader love interest and his Plucky Communist Friend (don't get me wrong, do I love that there's a Plucky Communist Friend shape in the book, but also she has two character traits and only two).
As a sidenote, I also think it's very funny that, because the book is built around the vague concept of 'there is a serial killer at the World's Fair' but invents its own Thematic villains rather than using the historical one to hand, ( mild book spoilers )
The premise: Alter Rosen, a Jewish immigrant in turn-of-the-century Chicago, ends up investigating the mystery of missing young Jewish men after his friend (and crush) Yakov gets murdered at the World's Fair. Alter is already full-time haunted by the memories of his father, who died on the journey across the Atlantic, and the responsibilities he has to his mother and sister back in the Pale -- but that doesn't matter to Yakov's dybbuk, who soon becomes the latest and most literal ghost in Alter's life as his spirit shouts to Alter's for Revenge.
Alter turns for help to his only underworld connection, a bad-boy gang leader with whom he has History, and the two of them end up on a journey through the darkest parts of Chicago and also their own pasts in order to solve the mystery before Alter loses himself completely in Big Ghost Feelings.
I really dug how simultaneously evocative and grounded the setting was -- this is a book that's intensely Jewish, intensely about a Jewish community in a specific place and time, and is also really, really committed to its sinister industrial-era-fantasy-horror vibes, and the pairing works really well!
I also appreciated the character of Alter, I liked the messiness of his queer feelings and his religious feelings and his obligations and guilts, and that he had both a Crime backstory and the big gay feelings and was the most religious and community-enmeshed person in the book and that these things coexisted perfectly well and all remained true by the end. But most of the people around him felt more two-dimensional, including both Alter's gang-leader love interest and his Plucky Communist Friend (don't get me wrong, do I love that there's a Plucky Communist Friend shape in the book, but also she has two character traits and only two).
As a sidenote, I also think it's very funny that, because the book is built around the vague concept of 'there is a serial killer at the World's Fair' but invents its own Thematic villains rather than using the historical one to hand, ( mild book spoilers )
