You Are Here
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
"Lin-Greenberg’s web of characters illustrate the complex lives of ordinary people." —Time
As a once-bustling mall prepares to shut its doors for the final time, the residents of an upstate New York town must reckon with a shocking act that forces them to reevaluate who they are in this "remarkable study of ordinary people's extraordinary inner lives" (Publishers Weekly, starred review)
The inhabitants of a small town have long found that their lives intersect at one focal point: the local shopping mall. But business is down, stores are closing, and as the institution breathes its last gasp, the people inside it dream of something different, something more. In its pages, You Are Here brings this diverse group of characters vividly to life—flawed, real, lovable strangers who are wonderful company and prove unforgettable even after the last store has closed.
The only hair stylist at Sunshine Clips secretly watches YouTube primers on how to draw and paint, just as her awkward young son covertly studies new illusions for his magic act. His friend and magician’s assistant, a high school cashier in the food court, has attracted the unwanted attention of a strange boy at school. She tells no one except the mall’s chain bookstore manager, a failed academic living in the tiny house he built in his mother-in-law's backyard. His family is watched over by the judgmental old woman next door, whose weekly trips to Sunshine Clips hide a complicated and emotional history and will spark the moment when everything changes for them all.
Exploring how the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are inextricably bound to the places we call home, You Are Here is a keenly perceptive and deeply humane portrait of a community in transition, ultimately illuminating the magical connections that can bloom from the ordinary wonder of our everyday lives.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lin-Greenberg's exceptional debut novel (after the collection Vanished) explores a complex web of relationships at a fading mall in Albany, N.Y. Among the people drawn together by the mall are Tina Huang, the last remaining stylist at a struggling hair salon, and Ro Goodson, an 89-year-old white woman who is Tina's only regular customer, and who Tina believes comes in because she's lonely. Ro takes a dim view of her Black neighbor Joan for moving into Ro's predominantly white neighborhood years earlier. Ro also doesn't think much of Joan's daughter, Gwen, an adjunct professor, or Gwen's white husband, Kevin, manager of the mall's bookstore, both of whom live in a tiny house on Joan's property. Maria, a high school senior who hopes to become a professional actor, dons a chicken outfit for her food court job and is upset when she doesn't get a lead part in her school's production of West Side Story. The other characters are past worrying their dreams won't come true; Tina secretly yearns to be an illustrator of children's books but "knows it's not a practical thing to pursue," while Ro plants a lemon tree that she knows won't bear fruit until after she's gone. After establishing a quirky tone, the novel's third act reaches a grand scale as an active shooter prowls the mall, though the real drama rests in the characters' reckoning with the limits of what is possible. This is a remarkable study of ordinary people's extraordinary inner lives.
