Product Description

This is a stunning debut from a new Australian writer - the story of a treasure hunt through the bookshops of New York! At eighteen, Rosemary arrives in New York from Tasmania with little more than her love of books and an eagerness to explore the city she's read so much about. The moment she steps into the Arcade bookstore, she knows she has found a home. The gruff owner, Mr. Pike, gives her a job sorting through huge piles of books and helping the rest of the staff - a group as odd and idiosyncratic as the characters in a Dickens novel. There's Pearl, the loving, motherly transsexual who runs the cash register; Oscar, who shares his extensive, eclectic knowledge with Rosemary, but furiously rejects her attempts at a more personal relationship; and Arthur Pick, who supervises the art section and demonstrates a particular interest in photography books featuring naked men. The store manager Walter Geist is an albino, a lonely figure even within the world of the Arcade. When Walter's eyesight begins to fail, Rosemary becomes his assistant. And so it is Rosemary who first reads the letter from someone seeking to 'place' a lost manuscript by Herman Melville. Mentioned in Melville's personal correspondence but never published, the work is of inestimable value, and proof of its existence brings the simmering ambitions and rivalries of the Arcade staff to a boiling point. Based on actual documents the author found while doing research on Melville, "The Secret of Lost Things" is at once a literary adventure that captures the excitement of discovering a long-lost manuscript, and an evocative portrait of life in a bookshop.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #564688 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Review
'I loved "The Secret of Lost Things". I loved the Arcade bookstore and the characters Sheridan Hay has created to occupy it. They are all a bit mad and very alive in this intriguing and hugely entertaining novel.' Roddy Doyle 'Sheridan Hay writes with a watchful eye and a nuanced heart, investing us in the fate of Rosemary Savage and the drama of bookish obsession becoming obsession plain and simple. She tracks her vivid eccentrics, flushes out their desperate natures, and suddenly we feel the old business of innocence and experience freshly lit. The tormented spirit of Melville comes gusting through, but by design -- "The Secret of Lost Things"forges ahead on its own strong sail.' Sven Birkerts, author of The Guttenberg Elegies

About the Author
Sheridan Hay was born in Tasmania. She worked in bookstores and in publishing for many years, and holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington. She has published short stories and teaches writing in the graduate program at Parson's School of Design, at The New School. This is her first novel.

Customer Reviews

Book about Books
This tells the story of 18 year old Rosemary, who moves to New York from Tasmania in the 70s, after the death of her mum. All she possesses is $300 and her mother's ashes, but manages to get a job in a rambling second-hand bookstore called the Arcade, which is staffed with an assortment of weird and wonderful characters. She soon finds herself on the trail of a lost Melville manuscript. This tale will be a delight for anyone who enjoys books about books, but it is so much more too. It has a love interest, a coming of age theme and a mystery. Maybe Sheridan tried to pack too much into this tale, but I thoroughly enjoyed every page.

A darker hybrid between 84 Charing Cross Road and Armistead Maupin
This is a slow and careful book which charts the journey of a young Tasmanian woman in a quirky corner of New York. Rosemary, the eighteen year old central character, is both much younger than her age - lacking in worldliness and any sort of 'modern cred', and also, much older, in terms of her attraction to a life of internal, rather than external, focus.

The small cast of characters in the book are all loners, oddballs, possessed of peculiar damage in some way.

There is a lot of nuance in this book , and it is sweetly, and sadly, delightful. To my shame, I am unfamiliar with Hermann Melville, so felt that there were probably layers and echoes which were lost on me, and that I might even have rated the book as 5 star if I had read Melville's books (much of the book is devoted to the search for a missing manuscript by Melville, and there are excerpts of his letters and writings included, these allusions both driving plot and character)

I really enjoyed meeting the distinctly oddball bookshop characters (hence the hybrid in my reveiw title).

However i did find there was something ultimately unsatisfying in the tie up of the Walter Geist storyline - something not quite believable in the development of relationship, nor in the 'sting' - even though how that was going to end was quite predictable.

I DID like the way she only dropped hints about the 'stinger' and didn't spell out the obvious person responsible - there was no unmasking of their identity, Rosemary never alludes to their identity, though I think the reader will have a very definite knowledge of who it is!

My guess is, if you liked the books mentioned above, and or the wonderful 'Piano Shop on the Left Bank', you will find this to your taste. If you only like the Armistead Maupin territory, this may be just a little too slow and 'pastel' in its colours, where Maupin uses a much more vibrant set of 'colours' - Hay's cast - even the wonderful Pearl - are somehow more secretive in their weirdness.

A book that will stay on my bookshelf
This is one of those books that draws you into its fictional world. I've read so many books where I get half way through and don't really care whether I finish the story or about what happens to the characters. With this book I cared what happened while also not wanting to finish the story because I didn't want to step out of the world that Sheridan Hay had created.

It's a real book lovers book with most of the story taking place in the Arcade, a huge book store with a literary mystery at its heart. A book store peopled by intriguing characters.

At the start of the book Rosemary,following the death of her mother, travels from her native Tasmania to New York to start a new life. Rosemary, is a very likeable protagonist, so unassuming that she has no idea how other people may be attracted to her. Although the book is quite clearly set in a modern day New York, there is also a sense of timelessness about the setting of the narrative. This fable-like urban landscape is the backdrop for Rosemary's journey to real adulthood and a new life. It's a book that I'll keep on my bookshelf rather than passing on.