Joseph O'Neill - Netherland (2)

I'm two for two in recent days in novels: "Serena" and now "Netherland." Both are outstanding.

Netherland is a first-person narrative (great author's voice) about a man in his mid-30's, Dutch, married to an English girl, a young son, his marriage floundering, the story taking place mostly in New York City after 9/11. Separated from his wife, he stays at the Chelsea Hotel with a motley crew of well-to-do residents (our narrator makes good money) including one Turkish man who dresses each day like an angel.

We experience vicariously the multicultural drama of contemporary New York where people of various nationalities are trying to make it in America. The great melting pot is still New York.

One of the these people is Chuck, a Gatsby-like character, who hails from Trinidad, and who has grandiose dreams of building a Cricket stadium while apparently running an underworld numbers game to finance his dream. Do you know anything about the game of Cricket? Do you know where the country of Trinidad is? Well, neither did I before reading this book.

Trinidad is the Southernmost Island in the Carribbean, just a few miles from Venezuela. I've thought that Cricket was a sissy version of baseball. Not so! I still don't understand the game after reading this book and looking on Wikipedia, but I get the impression that it's a serious, hard game. This novel says that Cricket is widely played in the NY area and that it is played in more than 100 countries.

Read this novel for a magical tour through contemporary New York City and its aspiring immigrants, for hearing a strong author's voice, for learning about the international game of Cricket, and for strongly developed and felt characters. I highly recommend it.