John gave me this book for Christmas this past December, and it was a quick read over a few days at the end of the year. This evocative novel by Alfred Hayes beautifully captures a kind of noirish vision of 1950s New York City that I find absolutely irresistible. Above all locales, this is my time, my place, and, as it is for the heroine, my weather.
Autumn, she always said, was her weather. She was always happiest when the sky was clouded over and gray, and there was a fine delicate mist in the air. Summer with its heat and it unchanging sun depressed and exhausted her.
(p. 85)
Yep,that’s me.