An electrifying debut novel that unfolds in the course of a single day inside one genteel New York City apartment building, as tensions between the building’s super and his grown-up daughter spark a crisis that will, by day’s end, change everything.Ruby has a strange relationship to privilege. She grew up the super’s daughter in the basement of an Upper West Side co-op that gets more gentrified … more gentrified with each passing year. Though not economically privileged herself, her close childhood friendship with Caroline, the daughter of affluent tenants, and the mere fact of living in such a wealthy neighborhood, close to her beloved Natural History Museum, brought her certain advantages, even expectations. Naturally Ruby followed her dreams and took out loans to attend a prestigious small liberal arts college and explore her interest in art. But now, out of school for a while, she is no closer to her dream job, or anything resembling it, and she’s been forced by circumstances to do the last thing she wanted to do: move back in with her parents, back into the basement. And Caroline is throwing one of her parties tonight, in her father’s glorious penthouse apartment, a party Ruby looks forward to and dreads in equal measure.
With a thriller’s narrative control, The Party Upstairs distills worlds of wisdom about families, great expectations, and the hidden violence of class into the gripping, darkly witty story of a single fateful day inside the Manhattan co-op Ruby calls home. Told from the alternating points of view of Ruby and her father, the novel builds from the spark of an early morning argument between them to the ultimate conflagration to which it leads by day’s end. By the time the ashes have cooled, the façade that masks the building’s power structure will have burned away, and no party will be left unscathed.
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So boring.
There are few portraits of everyday, working-class New Yorkers; Conell expertly weaves multiple points of view together in a gorgeously rich, Aristotelian plot that unfolds across a mere 24 hours in an UWS apartment building. Martin, the building super, struggles to connect with his daughter Ruby’s post-graduate employment and relationship issues; their attempt to understand each other stands out in stark relief against the over-indulged, privelaged Caroline, whose parents own the building’s Penthouse. Friendhip, love, loyalty and obligation are put to the test in complicated and surprising ways. I audiobooked this and loved it so much that I finished it in two days, ignoring everything else. What an amazing debut novel. Bravo!
I do not understand how this was a best seller. I kept reading hoping it would become less depressing, less dysfunctional, and less of a psychiatric mess, but no, it did not happen. Especially, in current times, it was just depressing and frustrating.
This was a good read about the daughter of a superintendent of a nyc luxury building. The story begins with the college educated daughter, who is an artist, being forced to move back with her parents after being dumped by her boyfriend. The daughter’s life-long best friend is the daughter of the wealthy Penthouse owner in the building. The writing & story is excellent, It was just too realistic, thus a bit depressing, to offer the enjoyable read desired during this pandemic.
The premise fell apart. Good ideas but weak follow through. 3 stars since characters were interesting.
This is a shallow story told in a very mediocre style.
This was a quick book to read, but I didn’t like it. It is a story about a superintendent and his family who lives in the basement of an Upper West Side NYC apartment building and their relationships and interactions with the tenants of the building. Martin, the super, hears the voice in his head of a dead tenant. His daughter, Ruby, is friends with Caroline, the penthouse owner. The social and financial differences of the tenants and the super’s family is stark and ever-widening.
#ThePartyUpstairs #LeeConell
Having some trauma was called being alive.~ from The Party Upstairs by Lee Conell
In one day, the lives of the residents of a New York City apartment building are forever changed.
Caroline lived in the penthouse and had fancy dolls and a beautiful view and a distant, unreliable, father.
The superintendent’s daughter Ruby grew up in the basement apartment down the hall from the garbage and laundry and boiler rooms.
Caroline and Ruby played dolls and make-believe as kids. They both studied art in college and graduated during the recession in 2008.
Caroline is supported by her parents as she creates marble sporks.
Ruby must support herself and takes the only job available, working in a coffee shop, her childhood dream of creating dioramas on hold.
When Ruby’s boyfriend decides she isn’t ambitious enough, they part ways and Ruby has nowhere to go but home, knowing her dad Martin will fume over the waste of an expensive education.
I graduated in 1978 with an English major. Jobs were scarce and I had to work at a department store before ‘stepping up’ to customer service in insurance and then moving into sales. Our son graduated in 2008 with a creative writing major. It was two years before he got a job, $9/hr work from home in customer service. Ten years later, he is doing well as a data analyst. We do what we have to do. Ruby’s predicament resonated with me!
What would Martin’s dream job be? He never had one. He had jobs for getting by.~ from The Party Upstairs by Lee Conell
Martin is hard working, stressed, and frankly, bitter. He uses meditation to tamp down the stress. But he is on-call 24-7, asked to do all the dirty jobs. Pull out hair clogs in the bathroom drain, killing the pigeons that nest on the window ledges, kicking the homeless out of the hallway. He hates what he does, but he does it to keep his home. It reminded my of my father-in-law; his dad died of TB when he was a boy and he could not afford college. He worked for the CCC to support his mom. He ended up in a job at Buick in Flint in scheduling. He hated his job. But he supported three boys through college.
Hard times–depression, recession, natural disaster, pandemic–hit most of us in ways that the wealthy don’t experience.
People believe they are friendly and supportive with their gifts of Starbucks and MetroCard gift cards, but who needs coffee house gift cards when you are living in a windowless basement apartment with a discarded 1980s couch with cows on it and your bed is a repurposed elevator box?
It reminded me of all the Christmas cookies we received over the years from parishioners. We needed cold, hard cash, not calories. We wanted parsonage upgrades so I could fit a turkey in the wall oven or a replacement for the kitchen floor that permanently stained when our son dropped a strawberry.
There is nothing worse than living in provided housing, dependent on your job performance and keeping people happy, knowing at any time you could be asked to leave. Knowing how it would disrupt your family’s life if you fail.
The tenants pretend to be friends with the super and his family. Noblesse oblige is alive and well. The people upstairs realize their power.
And it is making Martin crazy.
Tensions mount between Martin and Ruby, each desperately seeking the other’s approval. They both go a little crazy. Bad things happen.
In the end, Ruby and Martin discover that the worst that can happen can lead to a better life.
The Party Upstairs pries open the doors to reveal the class divide, how the poor hobble themselves to unfulfilled lives out of fear. It is the story of breaking free and allowing oneself to make life choices that may not align with predominate values.
I was given a free ebook by the publisher through Edelweiss. My review is fair and unbiased.