“I have one of the weirder jobs. I’m the recipient of a fellowship from the Lockwood Library, you know, the museum on Fifth Avenue. Once home to steel baron Leo Lockwood, it’s now among New York’s swankier museums and houses the Lockwood collection. In exchange for health insurance, an office overlooking a formal garden, and a cushy (for a philosopher!) income, I’m asked to research and write in the library and, four days a week - here comes the weird part - provide moral training for Lionel and Layla Lockwood’s twin tween sons.”
That’s a passage from Maria Semple’s novel Go Gentle. The speaker, Adora Hazzard, started her writing career as a television sitcom writer until she was sexually harassed, given a sizable settlement, divorced and moved to New York City, where she now lives on a floor of the legendary Astonia. Her two best friends, also single, live in apartments on the same floor. She landed this cushy philosopher job after one of her books on Stoicism caught the attention of a wealthy Lockwood who had been in a tragic accident and needed a new outlook on life.
Everything in her life is going quite well until the Lockwoods decide to replace a statue in their garden and a good-looking mysterious person enters the picture trying to stop it. As the book jacket says, “Soon her ordered world is upended by black market art deals, secret rendezvous and international intrigue.” Also, from the book jacket, “Romantic, hilarious, intelligent, and bursting with the stuff of life, it is a thrilling story of one woman’s midlife transformation.”
If you’re looking for a well-written story about life in New York City, then you must read Go Gentle by Maria Semple.
