Fourteen Days - Edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston - #bookreview

 

Call me 1A. I'm the super of a building on Rivington Street on the Lower East Side of New York City. It's a six-floor walk-up with the farcical name of the Fernsby Arms, a decaying crapshack tenement that should have been torn down long ago. It's certainly not keeping up with the glorious yuppification of the neighbourhood...

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Set in a New York apartment building, Fourteen Days is an irresistibly propulsive novel with an unusual twist: each character in this diverse, eccentric cast of neighbours has been secretly written by a different, major literary voice - from Margaret Atwood and John Grisham to Emma Donoghue and Celeste Ng.

One week into lockdown, the tenants of a run-down apartment building in Manhattan have begun to gather on the rooftop each evening and tell stories. With each passing night, more and more neighbours gather, bringing chairs and milk crates and overturned pails. Gradually the tenants – some of whom have barely spoken to each other before now – become real neighbours.

A dazzling, heartwarming and ultimately surprising narrative, Fourteen Days is an ode to the power of storytelling and human connection.

Includes writing from: Charlie Jane Anders, Margaret Atwood, Jennine Capo Crucet, Pat Cummings, Joseph Cassara, Angie Cruz, Sylvia Day, Emma Donoghue, Dave Eggers, Diana Gabaldon, Tess Gerritsen, John Grisham, Maria Hinojosa, Mira Jacob, Erica Jong, CJ Lyons, Celeste Ng, Tommy Orange, Mary Pope Osborne, Doug Preston, Alice Randall, Caroline Randall, Ishmael Reed, Roxana Robinson, Nelly Rosario, James Shapiro, Hampton Sides, R.L. Stine, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Monique Truong, Scott Turow, Luis Alberto Urrea, Rachel Vail, Weike Wang, DeShawn Charles Winslow, Meg Wolitzer.

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This is a really unusual collaborative work that has been put together by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston. It made for an interesting read that I enjoyed.

With contributions by thirty six American and Canadian authors, some more recognisable here in the UK than others, it is a collection of anecdotes from the various residents of an apartment block, who meet on the roof of the building during the covid pandemic and subsequent lockdown. Socially distanced from one another they share stories. All proceeds went to the Authors Guild Foundation to support writers during the pandemic.

In all honesty, some of these stories were better than others. I particularly enjoyed Celeste Ng's story of her Chinese grandmother who cursed people by writing their name on a scrap of paper and encasing it within an ice cube tray before placing it in her freezer. They have to remain frozen or the curse will be lifted.

It is an impressive experimental form of writing and appealed to me for its unique form. There may have been similar things done before but I cannot recall any and so enjoyed this for it's format. Of the stories which appealed to me most, I have been encouraged to seek out further writing by those particular authors.

Although this book is not going to appeal to everybody, I would encourage you to read it. I would love to hear your thoughts on this experimental literary book.

ISBN: 978 1784745455

Publisher:  Chatto & Windus

Formats:  e-book, audio and hardback

No. of Pages:  384 (hardback)