W5A3 - Infinite Home by Kathleen Alcott

Infinite Home by Kathleen Alcott is the story of a building in Brooklyn. An aging and widowed landlady, Edith, is slowly losing contact with reality, her mind is simply giving up. The tenants, a bunch of beautiful losers are fighting their eviction against her money-oriented son. The characters might be socially, emotionally or intellectually maladjusted, but they are deeply human. After all, their quest for home contains most human needs; love, security, significance, friendship, etc. More than a meticulous plot, Infinite Home mostly reveals a set of touching and authentic characters. The tone is kind and calming, like a daily routine in an uncomplicated life. Alcott’s writing was described as dreamy, but so are her characters.

This book would attract readers who like personal and touching stories, in which characters and their relationship are at the center. The setting of the book remains me of Life a user’s manual by George Perec, in which Perec described the inhabitants of a Parisian building. But while Perec tries to add layers over layers of intertwined stories, Alcott stays simple and on the human experience level. With that in mind, Alcott’s book is closer to Among the ten thousand things by Julia Pierpont, a story about family bonds and its resilience in face of adversity. Or Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell. Mitchell’s stories are nonfiction, but they portrayed delightfully the life of the has-beens, the cranks and the misfits of NYC.