I read Stacey D'Erasmo's review of Ten Thousand Saints in the New York Times this summer, and I knew I wanted to read this book. Coming of age tale that takes place partly in New York's late-1980's East Village music scene? Yes, please.
I will read pretty much any novel that is set in New York, and even if I don't love it, I usually enjoy the portions that take place in this fair city. I like knowing where things are, and being able to visualize the city blocks, the people, the scenes. If novels were ever set in my hometown, Harrisburg, Illinois, I might feel a similar connection, or if I ever read anything set at Vanderbilt University or Chicago (I lived there for over a year in 2000-2001). But they aren't, and I haven't, so New York is where my reads tend to take place. If I have a bunch of novels lying around on my shelf or in my Kindle, and one of them is based in New York City, that's the one I'll put at the top of the heap, every time.
Ten Thousand Saints is beautiful and intense and imperfect. It does suffer from some unfortunate editorial mistakes (some parts go on and on, to the detriment of the lovely descriptions of characters, time, and place), but I thought it was a vividly wonderful, wild ride. I particularly liked the ending, which was a little messy and a little sentimental, like life, like family, like teenager-ness.
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