Vintage Contemporaries

A Novel

By Dan Kois
Harper, 2023

What can I make of a book about two literary-minded young women finding their way in NYC in the ’90s and ’00s?
Written by a man, no less?

Dan Kois is no stranger here at FITK, I’ve reviewed one of his books, How to Be a Family, and have even had a personal interaction with him on one occasion. He is prolific, both in on-line and in print media, and a successful podcaster. Wildly diverse in his subject matters, Kois once even managed to explain what the film Donnie Darko was about! He started his career as an assistant literary agent (and a not very good one, he says) so the central conceit of this breezy book (that main character Emily Thiel is such a creature) actually seems plausible. Emily acquires a friend, also named Emily, who is a playwright/waitress/video store clerk/junkie. This yin and yang duo (two faces of Emily?) are surrounded and shaped by New York City which becomes as much of a character as any human in the book. Their trials and triumphs play out over 16 years in four sections titled: 1991 - Joy in the Face, 2005 - The Heart Unstrung, 1993 - The Emotional Megaphone, and 2007 - It’s Done When It’s Done. This shifting chronology makes for an interesting recursive narrative with different layers revealed slowly, rather than a story with a strict exposition.

As the years go by the two protagonists drift apart and then come back together again, the “good” Emily advancing her career in publishing by championing a series of books written by a friend of her mother’s, while the “bad” Emily spins her wheels in a cycle of her drug use and  misuse of people. Sub-themes of squatting, Aids, child-rearing, death, and family interactions would make it seem like movie-of-the-month material but Kois’ writing always elevates the proceedings.

A peculiar book, neither fish nor fowl, not the kind of thing I’d usually read, but it retained my interest—fortunately it was too clever by a tenth—any more so and it would have been twee and any less so and it would have been just dull.

Marginal recommendation.