Times a Thief, B.G. Firmani
Times a Thief, B.G. Firmani
List: $22.50 | Sale: $15.75
Club: $11.25

Time's a Thief

Author: B.G. Firmani

Narrator: Emily Rankin

Unabridged: 13 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/02/2017

Synopsis

Eighties New York springs to gritty, vibrant life in this piercingly romantic and compulsively readable coming-of-age novel. A beautiful, sad, funny, altogether bewitching debut

Francesca "Chess" Varani is an ultra-bright, sassy, but vulnerable Barnard freshwoman from a blue-collar background in the vibrantly gritty New York City of the mid-eighties. She strikes up a volatile and somewhat toxic friendship with drama-queen classmate Kendra Marr-Löwenstein, and falls into the bewitching orbit of her Salingeresque, high-toned family. Upon graduation, she moves into the Marr-Löwenstein house in the West Village as a secretary/girl-of-all-work to the soignèe literary intellectual Clarice Marr (think Susan Sontag but blondly coiffed and dressed in Chanel) and receives the sentimental education and emotional roughing up New York bestows on all of its new arrivals—including a love affair with Clarice's glamorously damaged son, Jerry.The story is related by Chess in sadder but wiser fashion from the distance of a financially beset 2008 and the depths of a crap job taken of necessity, tinged with the poignancy of time and choices made and not made.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sharon

This was that kind of book that you begin and then just fall into – it was engaging and effortless to read. There have been so many stories set in Manhattan and here we go, another one, but I mean, how many narrators give you two coming-of-age stories?! At the core were Francesca Variani, Italian Ca......more

Goodreads review by Nancy

The pace of this novel was a bit slow, and the narrator was almost maddeningly self-reflective, but I enjoyed this book immensely. It offered that rare gift to a reader: something to think about. In fact, lots of things: . . . . the challenge of understanding (and accepting) what it takes to be true......more

Goodreads review by Amy

I'm being super generous here, because zzzzzz. I just don't have the heart to give a one-star, because it feels incredibly labored. It's so overwritten, you really feel the effort in every single sentence, like, I guess you want to get your money's worth from the MFA. But don't they cover the whole......more

Goodreads review by Tammy

It seems that "the gritty New York of the 80's" is a thing. As another mentioned I,too, have read this before so this is ground that has been covered. And, dude, I found the usage of current slang during what is supposed to be the 80's jarring and odd. I know, right?......more

Quotes

“Time’s a Thief is a terrific coming-of-age novel: B.G. Firmani perfectly captures the innocent longing and more complicated striving of a young person on the cusp of her adulthood.  This bittersweet, funny, and bighearted book is also a beautiful, precise elegy to a wilder, more alive New York City where anything seemed possible.”    
— Dana Spiotta, author of Stone Arabia and Eat the Document
                                                                                                                                                           
“B.G. Firmani's witty, intimate, and knowing voice is captivating, and will keep readers up way past their bedtime, as it did me, just to stay under its spell.  Time's a Thief tells the ageless story of a young woman who comes to New York City to be schooled, awakened, emotionally bruised, and heartbroken, until she grows wise enough to put the shambles of her life back together. It's a pleasure to accompany this heroine on her journey.”
— Lynne Sharon Schwartz, author of Rough Strife and Disturbances in the Field

"Firmani really captures the grit and promise of 1980s New York, with too many cigarettes and dingy punk shows, when it was both unusual and magical for kids to come...for school... A leisurely exploration of character and place that, when you connect to Chess, packs a wallop."
—Booklist

“Immediately absorbing...A compelling story of youthful infatuation, love, and disillusionment.”
—Library Journal
 
“Chess is an engaging character... funny and cool... Like last year’s Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler, it is the coming-of-age of a young woman under the influence of unwholesome Manhattan sophisticates; like the previous year’s City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg, it is a nostalgic paean to the city’s recent past.”
—Kirkus Reviews
 

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