Tuesday Nights in 1980, Molly Prentiss
Tuesday Nights in 1980, Molly Prentiss
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
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Tuesday Nights in 1980

Author: Molly Prentiss

Narrator: George Newbern

Unabridged: 9 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/05/2016


Synopsis

“An intoxicating Manhattan fairy tale…As affecting as it is absorbing. A thrilling debut.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A vital, sensuous, edgy, and suspenseful tale of longing, rage, fear, compulsion, and love.” —Booklist (starred review)

A transcendent debut novel that follows a critic, an artist, and a desirous, determined young woman as they find their way—and ultimately collide—amid the ever-evolving New York City art scene of the 1980s.

Welcome to SoHo at the onset of the eighties: a gritty, not-yet-gentrified playground for artists and writers looking to make it in the big city. Among them: James Bennett, a synesthetic art critic for the New York Times whose unlikely condition enables him to describe art in profound, magical ways, and Raul Engales, an exiled Argentinian painter running from his past and the Dirty War that has enveloped his country. As the two men ascend in the downtown arts scene, dual tragedies strike, and each is faced with a loss that acutely affects his relationship to life and to art. It is not until they are inadvertently brought together by Lucy Olliason—a small town beauty and Raul’s muse—and a young orphan boy sent mysteriously from Buenos Aires, that James and Raul are able to rediscover some semblance of what they’ve lost.

As inventive as Jennifer Egan's A Visit From The Goon Squad and as sweeping as Meg Wolitzer's The Interestings, Tuesday Nights in 1980 boldly renders a complex moment when the meaning and nature of art is being all but upended, and New York City as a whole is reinventing itself. In risk-taking prose that is as powerful as it is playful, Molly Prentiss deftly explores the need for beauty, community, creation, and love in an ever-changing urban landscape.

About Molly Prentiss

Molly Prentiss is the author of Old Flame and Tuesday Nights in 1980, which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, and shortlisted for the Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine in France. Her writing has been translated into multiple languages. She lives in Red Hook, New York, with her husband and daughter. You can find her at Molly-Prentiss.com or on Instagram @MollyPrentiss.  


Reviews

Goodreads review by Andrew on April 01, 2023

The story of three people from different backgrounds whose paths cross in New York City in the course of a year. Well, in truth, it’s more than that – much, much more than that. Raul Engales is an Argentinian who left Buenos Aires in his twenties leaving his sister, Franca, and her new husband behind......more

Goodreads review by Karen on August 07, 2016

I really enjoyed this book and was not ready for it to end. I also loved reading about this time period in New York. I was however hoping to find out more about the three main characters in the end... we are left to wonder.........more

Goodreads review by Jessica on September 08, 2016

This is one of the most emotionally satisfying books I've read in a long time. The character development is deep — almost to the point of being excessive, but this is the kind of book I love most. I want to know every little thing. The characters in this book are fully drawn; they feel like real peo......more