Ivy Pochoda’s VISITATION STREET

Just got a new book in to read: Ivy Pochoda’s Visitation Street. It’s a Dennis Lehane imprint, about two girls who disappear from the waters around Brooklyn one night. Only one survives, no one knows what really happened. The action takes place during a heat wave where the temps are in the high 90′s… sitting outside tonight, in the 90-something degree air, reading this while my daughter plays on the Slip ‘n’ Slide… feels like I’m reading in 3D. A virtual-reality book. Heat-o-vision. Something like that. Very timely to have this book come in for me today.

**Update July 20, 2013**

I finished the book. The day after I started it. I guess I liked it. It was a good read – interesting, some mystery, characters you care about, good people who make bad decisions and not-so-good people who try to do the right thing. The book left me feeling a little melancholy, not sad really, but thoughtful. Mindful. Peaceful.

It has a few weird, metaphysical notes in the middle, some elements of danger, but in the end, you’re left with a little bit of hope. A good summer read.

A few days later, I was thinking about it. The “visitation” title in the title is the name of the street people live on. It’s also about how people come and go, they visit your life for a while, and then you have to move on. Some people are visited by voices of the dead – they hear them constantly, talk to them, learn from them. And eventually, even those visits are over. What’s left is the person, alone – but that’s not a bad thing, necessarily.

The New York Times has some nice things to say about this book, too. Check it out – it’s a good summer read.