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Visitation Street: A Novel
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Visitation Street: A Novel
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Visitation Street: A Novel
Ebook368 pages6 hours

Visitation Street: A Novel

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this ebook

Chosen by Denis Lehane for his eponymous imprint, Ivy Pochoda’s Visitation Street is a riveting literary mystery set against the rough-hewn backdrop of the New York waterfront in Red Hook.

It’s summertime in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a blue-collar dockside neighborhood. June and Val, two fifteen-year-olds, take a raft out onto the bay at night to see what they can see.

And then they disappear. Only Val will survive, washed ashore; semi-conscious in the weeds.

This shocking event will echo through the lives of a diverse cast of Red Hook residents. Fadi, the Lebanese bodega owner, hopes that his shop will be the place to share neighborhood news and troll for information about June’s disappearance. Cree, just beginning to pull it together after his father’s murder, unwittingly makes himself the chief suspect, but an enigmatic and elusive guardian is determined to keep him safe.

Val contends with the shadow of her missing friend and a truth she buries deep inside. Her teacher Jonathan, a Julliard School dropout and barfly, wrestles with dashed dreams and a past riddled with tragic sins.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateJul 9, 2013
ISBN9780062249913
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Visitation Street: A Novel
Author

Ivy Pochoda

Ivy Pochoda is the author of The Art of Disappearing, Visitation Street, and Wonder Valley, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and winner of the Strand Critics Award. She lives in Los Angeles.

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Reviews for Visitation Street

Rating: 3.5964286000000003 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book was chosen by Dennis Lehane to be published under his imprint and after reading this I can certainly see why. The Red Hook area in Brooklyn, an area that contains middle class families, pushing against the tenements, a diverse grouping of people that have made some wonderful characters. For some reason this book has really resonated with me, I find myself thinking about it more and more. It is a book that has many different layers, there is much going on above and below the surface.Two young girls, who have been friends for a long time, are bored and so they decide to take a plastic inflatable wrap onto the East River. One girl is found, earl the next morning half drowned, but the other is not found leading every to speculate on what happened. The girl who is found claims she does not remember anything.The big story though is not the missing girl, so much as what her disappearance causes others in the neighborhood to do and act. Layer by layer different people, have their lives exposed, hopes and dreams, restitution and punishment. It is the ghosts that are in our midst, those alive that we do not notice, ghosts that inhabit places we overlook, the ghosts of guilt and the fear of acceptance. Of course, there are real ghosts as well, those who have lived, that do not want to leave. It is about being instead of looking for a way out and appreciating what we have. Amazing book. I hope others think so too.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Visitation Street is the second book published under Dennis Lehane’s new imprint at Harper Collins. My feeling: VisitationStreetif it’s good enough for Dennis, it’s good enough for me. That can be a dangerous philosophy but in this particular case, it worked quite well. I don’t think I’m ruining anything by saying that two fifteen year old girls take a rubber raft out on the bay at the end of Red Hook in Brooklyn and only one comes back.Is there a mystery? Sure. But is that what makes this story so good? Not at all. Ms. Pochoda has explored a way of life; the life in Red Hook through several characters that interact with and have an impact on Valerie, the girl who returns. Through these characters, Ms. Pochoda portrays the evident racial divide in Red Hook, the secrets that people hold inside and the reasons for their actions, and the yearnings that they have for a life different than the one they’re living.As in life, some of the characters are sad examples of what we do to ourselves, some striving for better and some are just so lost.I started reading this book in fits and starts but that wasn’t doing it justice. When I finally had time to sit and really read, I got sucked in big-time. I didn’t want to put this book down. I suggest that you do the same…find a length of time to read.Ms. Pochoda can certainly turn a phrase. For instance, describing what a summer’s night in Red Hook is like, “It’s a hot night in a calendar of hot weeks.” Describing a ceiling in the projects, “He opens his eyes to the water map on the ceiling, the brown and yellow bubbles tracing the pathways of his upstairs neighbor’s leaky plumbing.” Or describing Valerie at the entrance to the Tabernacle Church, “They take in her uniform and her lanky frame–her pale skin and unremarkable hair. A drab piece of flotsam lost in a sea of Sunday color.” To me, that’s good writing.My only criticism, and it’s minor. There’s a small map of Red Hook at the beginning of the book. I figured that bigger is better so I did an internet search for a street map of Red Hook. However, with the map in hand, I still couldn’t quite grasp which way the characters were going and what was where in Red Hook. Was it important? Probably not, but as an anal-retentive, and since the book was equally about the place as well as the characters, I wanted to get the entire experience. Don’t let this bog you down, though.As an aside: I didn’t realize that I travel through Red Hook when I go visit the kids in Brooklyn. Who woulda thunk?
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was a 3.5 star read for me.Pochoda’s atmospheric debut mystery is as much about a community teetering between it past and future as about the mystery of what really happened when two teenage girls looking for some summer fun takes a rubber raft for a spin in the Hudson River. Brooklyn’s Red Hook district is built on scraps while infusing its hopes, dreams, frustration and respect intertwined with the residents’ view of themselves. It is the character Red Hook along with the melancholy-like diverse group of residents that keeps the reader turning the pages as the author effectively evokes the time and place. The use of the mystery to make statements about the political/social/economic issues provides the gritty and noir-like feel to exploring the rules of justice of a community. While the storyline falters towards the end, this does not take away from the thrill of the unexpected twists that may change how the reader feels about some of the characters. Fans of Attica Locke writing will enjoy this story.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In Visitation Street Ivy Pochoda uses the disappearance of a girl—lost when an inflatable raft flips over on the Hudson River—to dissect the lives of the residents of the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Red Hook. One evening, trying to beat the sweltering midsummer heat, Val and June—who, at fifteen are on the cusp of adulthood—take Val's pink raft down to the waterfront and launch it next to the Beard Street Pier, assuming the currents will carry them a short distance across the water and they will disembark cool and refreshed. Unfortunately their plan leads to tragedy. Early the next morning Val is discovered alone, wet, filthy and barely breathing beneath Valentino Pier. June is nowhere to be found. The bulk of the narrative covers the next several months, as Val struggles through a torturous healing process and embarks upon a personal odyssey of self-discovery, and others whose lives are in various ways touched by the tragedy deal with the loss and the emotions it unleashes. Pochoda creates richly detailed personal histories, laudable ambitions, and complex motivations for her characters, with each chapter a third-person narration from the perspective of one or the other. It is not a large cast, so the narrative as a whole is easy to follow. Pochoda’s characters vary in age, gender, and ethnicity, and one of her strengths as a writer is that she makes each and every one utterly convincing. She also makes effective use of the Red Hook neighbourhood, its streets and landmarks, giving it depth and detail and bringing it to life on the page. If the book has a flaw, it would be that it lacks suspense and narrative momentum. Toward the middle of the story her characters seem to be marking time, waiting for something of significance to happen. Still, the book is readable and engaging and entirely praiseworthy as a first novel.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Reminiscent of West Side Story, the class struggle portrayed by The characters in this book is drawn with such precision that the reader is able to understand and empathize with each one of them in spite of their often less than savory backgrounds and behavior. We might not want to live their lives or move into their hood, but they are portrayed with a realism that sings. The mystery is so well entwined in the lives of these characters that it takes a while to determine exactly what the mystery is. Is June missing? Did she drown? Was she murdered? What really happened, and who knows? Who cares? And why? It's a true underdog story, set in a vibrant, currant setting that will appeal to lovers of mysteries, young adults and adults alike, and readers who want a beautifully crafted work of fiction. It works especially well in audio. It's one I'll listen to and read again, and fully expect to see this one on the movie screen someday.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    First of all I'm going to say this is not really crime fiction although crimes are committed in the novel's background. It is more an exploration of how one girl copes with the disappearance of her friend, of what makes up the community of Red Hook on the waterfront in Brooklyn, of how residents work to create community cohesiveness, and the lengths that someone will go to to pay a debt.Ivy Pochoda creates a vision of a community that is haunted by the ghosts of the past. Sometimes the voices of the past reach out and keep the people of the present anchored there.There was a passage that I particularly liked: He understands what keeps Gloria in Red Hook. It’s not what is here now, but what was here back when—the history being buffed and polished away in the longshoreman’s bar. As he crosses from this abandoned corner of the waterside back over to the Houses he becomes aware of the layers that form the Hook—the projects built over the frame houses, the pavement laid over the cobblestones, the lofts overtaking the factories, the grocery stores overlapping the warehouses. The new bars cannibalizing the old ones. The skeletons of forgotten buildings—the sugar refinery and the dry dock—surviving among the new concrete bunkers being passed off as luxury living. The living walking on top of the dead—the waterfront dead, the old mob dead, the drug war dead—everyone still there. A neighborhood of ghosts. It’s not such a bad place, Cree thinks, if you look under the surface, which is where Gloria lives.Hovering on the horizon is the imminent arrival of the Queen Mary II, promising great things for Red Hook, and in the long run failing to deliver.This is a book that will provide many engrossing talking points.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a very compelling story, set in Red Hook, Brooklyn; it gives a complex picture of the neighborhood: the inhabitants of city low-income projects, white working class residents, an Arab-American corner store owner with a great civic conscience and a new cruise-ship terminal. Two young teenage girls go out on a raft into the river; one is found ashore and revived, but the other is missing. This is the focus for learning about the residents of this neighborhood and their relationship to this event. It is about guilt and redemption. The character development is suberb as is the sense of place.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Visitation Street takes place in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood, an eclectic mix of blue collar, urban decay and hipster hangouts. Val and her best friend June decide to look for adventure and set sail on a pink raft in the East River. Only Val returns later that evening washed ashore coughing and sputtering. The author examines how June's disappearance affects the neighborhood and its inhabitants. I enjoyed the book and thought it was well written. I especially liked Fadi, the bodega owner who had a good heart and tried to see the best in everyone. This is an impressive debut novel, I look forward to reading more from Ivy Pochada
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Once I "got" this book and settled into it, it was much more enjoyable and better paced. I think the fact that it's pimped as a "Dennis Lehane" book actually hindered my expectations. Embrace the spirituality and let go of the "whodunit" expectations and you will see that this is a well-crafted book that perfectly captures the essence of a place and its people.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Pocoda's debut novel The Art of Disappearing was my #1 read in 2011 so I was more than a little excited to read her newest work. The books are pretty much nothing alike but once I got over that initial disappointment I began to really enjoy Visitation Street.It is not so much a mystery novel as it is literary fiction with a mystery central to the plot. Two teenage girls take a raft out for a summer night adventure...and one of the girls goes missing. What happened to her is the mystery; how the answer is reached is the literary meat of the book.The story takes place in Brooklyn in the neighborhood of Red Hook. It's a racially diverse neighborhood - the whites in their middle class homes, the blacks dwelling in the projects, and several shopkeepers of various ethnicities providing services to everyone. The author explored the tension that is created by this atmosphere while slowly revealing how and why this is related to the disappearance of June.Pochada fills the novel with a superb cast of characters - Val, the girl who was with June when she disappeared; Jonathan, the music teacher who rescued Val when she washed up on shore; Cree, the teenager who witnessed Val and June's raft adventure; Fadi, the bodega owner who knows everything about Red Hook; Ren, the artist who mysteriously appears in the neighborhood and befriends Cree. They crash through the novel like pinballs, ricocheting off each other as they individually struggle with guilt and secrets and grief and dreams.The story builds to a quiet, sad end and when the mystery is solved it seems inevitable (though it was never obvious). Yes, this not a mystery novel with clues and detectives and adventure. What it is, though, is a tragic story about the damaging repercussions of prejudice and silence.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This novel is like a gritty Winesburg Ohio, as it follows various characters in a neighborhood when a tragedy occurs. Two teenage girls take a flimsy raft into the East River one night, and only one returns. The impact on the community is unexpected and varied, and this provides a fascinating glimpse into the connections and bonds among the families, friends, and businesses.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Good for a first book. I liked the setting; I felt that the town of Red Hook was one of the characters in the book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Still not sure what to make of this novel. Lyrical, haunting, atmospheric, but also meandering and slightly anticlimactic. The heat of a Brooklyn summer, and the personalities of the Red Hook community, leap vividly from the page, but what exactly is going on? Two girls take an inflatable raft out into the bay and only one returns, but there's no real mystery, and soon the only importance of the missing girl are the lives united by her absence. Her best friend, a family who have the 'gift' to contact the dead, including a boy whose father was gunned down outside their home, a school teacher, and the owner of a bodega. All sympathetic, if not always likeable, characters - yet I found my interest wandering, and my imagination conjuring up all sorts of 'extraordinary' outcomes, mostly involving Ren the 'lost boy'. The final chapters were a bit of a let down, in comparison, while leaving me enough to think about after closing the book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I can see why Dennis Lehane chose this novel as the first one under his Harper Collins imprint. The section of Red Hook, Brooklyn comes alive in much the same way Lehane brings South Boston to life.

    One summer evening fifteen year old Val and June take an inflatable pink raft to the bay and swim into the water. Watching them is Cree, an 18 year-old boy who wishes he could go with them. He watches the raft from the shore and then decides to swim out after them. Cree tries to reach the girls but the current is too strong and eventually he swims back to shore. The next morning Val , nearly drowned, is found under a pier but June is missing and foul play is suspected.

    The location plays an important part in the telling of this story. Some of the interesting characters we meet are Val's alcoholic music teacher, Jonathan, who spends nights as a piano player to a transvestite performer. Jonathon is the one who finds Val that morning and carries her to safety. Fadi is the Lebanese owner of a small convenience store where Jonathon first brings Val. Fadi also befriends Ren, a mysterious young squatter who has is friends with Cree. Cree is having a difficult time dealing with the murder of his father several years ago. Cree's mother is a nurse who is still coping with the death husband, Marcus. Cree's cousin Monique is a childhood friend of both Val and June. The multiple voices from the characters and their points of view made it an interesting read.

    This story is not a mystery even though it may sound like one. I would describe it as more of an urban character study. I think it would make a very good movie depending on what young actors are cast. The novel is compelling but Ms. Pochoda gives away too much information and the reader doesn't get the opportunity to figure out things for themselves. I think if you are looking for a mystery you will be disappointed but if you enjoy character-driven urban novels you'll probably enjoy this one.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Quite enjoyable, with very good writing, and really unique story and characters in an interesting locale.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    When this book was published two years ago, Red Hook in Brooklyn, NY had not fallen victim to the relentless gentrification of the borough. So now it seems unlikely that a missing white girl in this neighborhood would fall so quickly through the cracks, when fifteen year olds Val and June take an inflatable pink pool raft down to the filthy, polluted Upper Bay on a hot summer night, and only Val returns.Val and June are, however, the least interesting people in rundown Red Hook, and the books improves greatly when the reader meets Cree, a high school graduate and son of a murdered police officer; Jonathan, a piano bar performer in Manhattan who moonlights as a Red Hook parochial school music teacher; Ren, mentor to Cree, who dazzles the blocks with his art from a spray paint can; and Fadi, a bodega owner awaiting the first docking of the Queen Mary in Red Hook.All these lives intersect and all these lives matter. The characters are all believable and Pochoda sends us deeply, deeply under their collective skins and the surface of this neighborhood on the brink of a cataclysmic attack by the Upwardly Mobiles.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Apparently this was published by Dennis Lehane's new(ish) imprint, and I can totally see why. It's got kind of a Dennis Lehane Lite feel to it. There is a suspicious incident (a teenage girl goes missing), but most of the book is about the impact on the various characters connected -- directly, or indirectly, to the event. I liked it, it was an engaging read. I wouldn't say it was too weighty, though. Some of the characters were simply sketches, and of those that were more central to the story, most were interesting but few ended up being really memorable or insightful. It's set in Red Hook, Brooklyn, I believe the summer prior to Sandy, because you couldn't really write a book about anything that happened AFTER without that being the focus. Being somewhat familiar with Red Hook, I think it does a decent job at showing some of the social patterns (traditional blue collar families, subsidized public housing, and a new influx of hipsters) and recent shifts in the neighborhood.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    My book club chose this book for our April read. As I read the book, "who the heck chose this book? Does it mean they LIKED it?" kept running through my head. I see many positive reviews, so it must be me, but I disliked this book only maybe second to "The Cement Garden" by Ian McEwan (which was just plain icky, IMHO). Maybe it's because I didn't grow up in a neighborhood like Red Hook and I cannot connect with a rough dockside town. I don't know, but I never connected to any of the characters, and the teacher, Jonathan, was just creepy. By the end, I just wanted for it to be done - I would have given up if it weren't for the book discussion group. I have just found out that our group is skyping with the author. We're supposed to submit questions, and the only one that comes to mind is, "what possessed you to write this book?" So I think I'll just keep my mouth shut.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This mystery started out really strong for me, but it lost momentum somewhere in the middle. It all centers around the disappearance of a local girl one fateful night. The neighborhood of Visitation Street is so perfectly described, the heavy humidity, graffiti-tagged alleyways, the stench of garbage, etc. From the racial divisions to the encroaching crime, the reader feels like part of that dark world. We meet the owner of a local bodega who is just trying to get involved in the community, a widow who still hears the voice of her dead husband, a young girl grieving the loss of her friend, a musician who is a piano player in a drag club at night and a teacher in the local high school by day, a young black boy whose ambition is halted by his mother's failing health, and more. The characters are richly drawn and much more vivid than the plot. The writing is excellent and it's no surprise that Dennis Lehane was a big fan of the book. It reminded me quite a bit of his style and his gritty descriptions of Boston. **SPOILERSI really struggle with the whole teacher-student relationship thing. It's so icky and no matter how well the author tries to show that it just happened then it's no one's fault, in my mind there is an adult and there is a child and there is one person who should clearly be making better decisions. I just can't get behind that story.I also had a hard time with the characters that seemed to have no purpose. They would be briefly mentioned, but it felt like their story didn’t go too far. Others seemed important but weren’t as interesting. **SPOILERS OVER** BOTTOM LINE: The loved certain aspects of this novel, like the writing, but the plot fell apart a bit at the end for me. It felt like it was almost there, but never quite came together. I would definitely read another book by this author and I would hope that she would just keep getting better with time.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    June and Val are bored fifteen-year-old girls on that summer night they decide to take a rubber raft down to the water and float around a bit. They only looking for a bit of adventure, something to occupy their time during that summer that they're too young to join the older teenagers partying and too young to be content with a backyard sleepover, but only one girl will survive their excursion. This is packaged as a crime novel, but its far more ambitious than that. Set in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook, the novel follows several characters who were altered by the night's events, from the girl left alone to be an object of curiosity and gossip, to the man who rescued her, to the owner of a local convenience store hoping to create a sense of community out of the very different groups living in the area. Visitation Street examines what makes a neighborhood into a community, and how hard it can be to move forward while living half in the past.There are too many point-of-view characters for this novel to hold together, but Pochoda has a talent for creating complex, nuanced characters from a variety of backgrounds. I look forward to reading her novels as she progresses as an author.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Mars and Venus in the Bedroom by John GrayHave liked the series and thought I'd just read all of them. Found it funny how a woman dresses what goes through the man's mind at the time.Lot of helpful information that is easy to understand about how things are going and how you can make a difference.I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    From the description I thought this was a murder mystery. It is not. It is a beautifully written tale of the aftermath of a tragedy. Two young girls, bored, hot, restless, grab an inflatable raft and jump into the East River off the pier in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Things go wrong, and not just for the girls, but for many in their troubled community. Insightful, moving writing, wonderfully fully drawn out characters, surprises both happy and heartbreaking!
    Again, for an amazing review - with photos of locations scouted in Red Bank and comments from the author, see Will Brynes here at Goodreads!!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    ≡【XEXI♥】≡┯▶【《《ΤΙΜΕ⑧②˛СΟΜ》》】◀┯롤베팅토토 분석┯▶【《《ΤΙΜΕ⑧②˛СΟΜ》》】◀┯ 롤베팅토토 분석
    롤베팅토토 분석 ┯▶【《《ΤΙΜΕ⑧②˛СΟΜ》》】◀┯롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석롤베팅토토 분석
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    this books is very very interesting to read am enjoy to read this book i think u also enjoy this book