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Apartment by Teddy Wayne:
Year published: 2020
Book # for author: 4
Genre: fiction
Setting: NYC in 1996
Apartment by Teddy Wayne synopsis:
Apartment by Teddy Wayne (on Amazon here) introduces us to our 24 year old unnamed main character. He’s getting his MFA in writing and lives alone in his aunt’s old rent-controlled apartment which his dad pays for. Here and there we hear how he feels there’s something is intrinsically wrong with him, which only further disconnects him with others. The setting is NYC in the 90s, and the book was written in 2020. Anyone else getting MYORAR vibes? More about MYORAR on my blog here.
Writing class isn’t too great for him either; his work always seems to get attacked. Though someone does come to his defense time and time again: Billy. They get to talking at an after-class gathering and eventually hang out at another bar, the one where Billy works. Billy is a breath of fresh air for our main character. He’s so easy to relate to and really seems to appreciate him.
Billy’s dorm set up is less fortunate than our main character’s, though. His bed is a mattress in a side room at the bar where he works. He’s only at the MFA program on scholarship and is squeezing by on what little he earns at the bar. It was only natural for our main character to offer his spare room to Billy for free. In exchange Billy insists on doing the cooking and giving the apartment a deep clean once a week.
The vibe of Apartment by Teddy Wayne:
The vibe of the book is sophisticated and gloomy, fitting right in with your classic sad girl book recs like Eileen (more about this book on my blog here) and The New Me (more here). Though of course this book is about men and I doubt it would pass the Bechdel test.
You can tell the book is written by a man as well. Its sentences are longer, and there are lots of pop culture, sports and political references. At first it bothered me, but after a chapter I forgot about it. Plus, most of the books I read are written by women these day, so it’s nice to switch things up.
I found myself rooting for Billy and the main character’s friendship. It really was a beautiful thing! They went to writing parties together, met girls together, chilled together in the evenings and even traveled for family events together. Because our main character had more money from his dad, he ended up paying for more of their shared adventures but Billy never took it for granted.
It invited you to look deeper
What’s interesting is that because our characters are studying writing, there are many opportunities for hints to look beyond the plot’s surface. For example, our main character defends Billy’s writing in class after their classmates accused it of not fully voicing the character’s pain: “The narration is what he chooses to give voice to, to an either imaginary audience or himself. The thoughts about his son are too painful for him to surface.”
Or when their new professor praises Billy’s work for the same: “‘Now that’s how you write dialogue’, he said after Billy read aloud the first page. ‘Terseness, omissions, inarticulateless. Less is more, Hemingway’s iceberg. None of this flowery shit I see all over the place these days, where the characters tell you every fucking thing on their minds like they’re talking to their shrink about how Mommy didn’t hug them enough. In real life people don’t say what they want to say. A lot of times they don’t even think it.’
Personally, I like this advice but I think books that are more forthcoming emotionally, a bit more spelled out, are also great (if done well) because then you can dive even deeper. And side point: I agree with the teacher’s other advice: “Don’t ever read a bestseller, it’s automatically middlebrow horseshit” …not that I always take it 🤣
These excerpts show us there’s more beneath the surface and that we should read into things. One of those things being their friendship. It seems to be going a little too well…that is until they hit a small blip in the road, and things crumble both suddenly and slowly. It was painful to witness
I really enjoyed Apartment by Teddy Wayne, despite it leaving me with an anxious feeling. The buildup and setting had me. I liked how it touched on the nuances of privilege, friendship, loneliness…The ending put a new spin on it as well. At which point did things really turn sour? And did our main character make it too easy? The book is on Amazon here.
My rating: 8/10.
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