After Delores

This book made me love and respect Sarah Schulman forever! This novel is a perfect memory of the old East Village as well as capturing 20's post breakup angst as well as exactly how it feels to work in a busy diner. And then it's kind of a noir-ish mystery. And the author's progressive politics are intertwined provocatively into the plot. Oh, and it's about being gay too. Maybe this book & Schulman don't speak to everyone (judging from the other reviews here, which kind of egged me on to speak my piece). Kinky Friedman wrote a spectacular review of After Delores for the NYT back when it was published, it's a complimentary piece of writing that should be included in some 20th year reisssue! [...]

I read a lot of crime fiction, usually of the intense George Pelecanos/Dennis Lehane/Michael Connelly variety. I read this one several years ago on a recommendation. I found it different from anything else I've read. Funny without being cutesy, gritty in its own way without being overbearingly so. And how many novels are set (a little bit, anyway) in East Newark NJ, a town of about eight square blocks across the Passaic River from Newark? I love that attention to detail. I still remember the ending vividly, which is more than I can say for a lot of crime novels.