Product Description

A vivid and timely novel of life in Manhattan, by the author of The Jukebox Queen of Malta. Farro Fescu, concierge, janitor, general factotum, oversees the lives of the residents of Echo Terrace, collecting their mall, organising their taxis, fixing problems with their apartments. There is Nora Abernooth, who lives with a menagerie of birds, snakes and monkeys who provide much-needed company since the death of her husband. In the penthouse is Harry Falcon, multimillionaire and founder of the country's biggest frozen-food company, who is slowly dying of cancer. In the Harry Houdini suite is Dr Tattafruge, cosmetic surgeon to the stars and specialist in sex change operations. Maggie Sowle lives a quiet life in the Helen Keller apartment, sewing quilts that will hang in galleries around the world. Abdul Saad is a young Muslim making his way in the mortuary business, still living at home with his parents but dreaming of a better life and of the woman he loves. Karl Vogel sits in his apartment, surrounded by walls painted blue to remind him of the skies he used to fly through as a Luftwaffe ace back in the bad old days. And of course, Luther Rumfarm, making more and more money on the bond market and, not so quietly, buying up all the apartments he can. Farro Fescu watches them all...not that he doesn't have worries of his own. Between Two Rivers is a lyrical novel of connections, of how people's lives are never lived in isolation. It is a story of the power of memories and the strength gained from hope. As the residents of Echo Terrace go about their daily concerns, fighting their own battles, falling in love or coming to terms with loss, each, unknowingly, shapes the lives of the others. And events in the wider world also impinge. Echo Terrace lies in the shadow of the World Trade Centre, and the 1992 terrorist attack that rocks the residents' comfortable lives is but a forward echo of a more devastating disaster yet to unfold.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #258434 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 449 pages

Richard Russo
'Between Two Rivers is a masterpiece, a book that will take your breath away.'

The Wall Street Journal
'In a city of eight million stories, this is one worth picking up.'

From the Back Cover
Within the walls of Echo Terrace, the world…

Farro Fescu is the concierge of Echo Terrace, an apartment block in New York City. Passing through his lobby at all hours of the night and day is an exotic cross-section of the world's population: An Egyptian born plastic surgeon who lives on the fifth floor and specialises in gender reassignment; a fighter pilot, on the eighth floor, who flew for Nazi Germany during WWII; an Iraqi spice merchant and the world-famous crazy-patch quilter with whom he's having an affair; and the young widow whose apartment is a jungle Eden filled with a menagerie of specimens - finches, canaries, a defanged cobra, a monkey named Joe - that had been the subject of her dead husband's research.
Fescu knows them all, knows all their secrets. He is keenly attuned to the building and the people in it, yet he does not know what is in his own heart - why, after a long, hard life, he is still alive, and still alone. Nor does he know of what he will be capable in the face of sudden, overwhelming tragedy…

Customer Reviews

Character-driven rather than Plot-driven.
Set within the walls of Echo Terrace, a flash New York apartment building, "Between Two Rivers" is a smooth-flowing elegantly written novel about the everyday lives of the inhabitants of a Condominium, residents and staff, tracing how their day-to-day lives cross and collide and become dramatically intertwined as they go about their daily business. At the centre, seated behind his oak desk in the marble lobby, concierge Farro Fescu is the pivot around whom the life of the building revolves. The building is Farro's passion as well as his work. Attuned to his charges every whim, Farro's intimate knowledge of their every custom, need and desire is such, it seems "as if there are wires running from his fingers to every room". Rinaldi uses Farro to pull the whole together. Through Farro, Rinaldi brings into play all sorts of extraordinary characters, a cross-section of society in fact, who breathe life into the building - and the novel, each with their own complex backstory to tell.

Character-driven rather than plot-driven, Rinaldi's narrative cross-cuts intermittently from one apartment to another, spotlighting first one character then another as the narrative focus switches up and down and around the building. The effect is to allow the reader to look through different windows, watching unseen as Rinaldi switches from one apartment to another, and from one scenario to the next - a widow whose apartment houses a collection of wildlife; an ex-Luftwaffe fighter pilot; a plastic surgeon who performs sex-change ops: a frozen-food "big cheese" who is dying of cancer - revealing in a series of vivid snapshots, the depth and complexity, the heart and mind, of each character in focus.

A series of powerful, dramatic set-pieces including et al, the rape of the Condo's young housekeeper on the subway and the attacks on the World Trade Centre, culminating in the terrible events of 9/11, had this reader's eyes racing through the velvet-smooth prose in what seemed no time at all; prose infused with surges of anguish and terror that resonates long in the mind. Elsewhere in the book, in contrast, Rinaldi's abundance of wit and humour leaps off the pages. Highly recommended! Try also The New Yorkers "Wonderful Town" and "The Time Out Book of New York Short Stories" for other perspectives on life in New York apartment buildings.

Superb
I cannot actually rave about this novel enough. When my friend had some second hand books for sale, I picked this one on the basis of the one other review on Amazon and I can't thank that reviewer enough! Based on an apartment block in downtown Manhattan, the author intertwines the lives of those residing there with a consistent seamlessness, and even though each character takes centre stage for often just a chapter at a time, the characterisation is so powerful you feel like you know each person intimately. The closing section of the novel is particularly moving, although at first it felt like an unnecessary addition, included purely to be topical. I would recommend this to anyone, it is impossible to put down.