Parking Race

~ Alternate Side, by Anna Quindlen ~

Is a book only interesting if the characters have problems? Or, conversely, does it make a book uninteresting if the characters live lives of extreme privilege with few crosses to bear? Anna Quindlen’s latest novel, Alternate Side, gives readers the opportunity to examine their own answers to these questions.

The family at the center of the novel, the Nolans, are almost ludicrously privileged. Charlie Nolan is an upscale lawyer, whose main worry is that he is not at the tippy-top of his profession. Nora Nolan slipped into her job as a museum fundraiser through a series of minor coincidences, and wealthy New Yorkers keep offering her fancier jobs without the slightest effort on her part. Their two children are happy, well-adjusted and brilliant, and are in college in M.I.T. and Williams respectively. The family has a Jamaican housekeeper/nanny who has been with them from the moment the children were born, and manages the household with complete dedication. The Nolans live in one of the very few dead-end streets in NYC, where the small community of homeowners all know each other well and have at most minor skirmishes.

Into this haven enters a problem peculiar to wealthy New Yorkers: parking. The parking lot on their street is limited to a few cars, and Charlie Nolan is madly excited when he gets one of the coveted spots. It is hard for most readers to understand the excitement, but to be fair, Nora Nolan is also unmoved. The unpleasant event at the center of the novel is related to parking: a nasty neighbour attacks the Hispanic handyman, Ricky, who parks in the wrong place. Race and class are obviously involved, and the tabloids seize on the incident. The social fabric of the street starts fragmenting, and along with it, the Nolan’s marriage.

Huge, searing novels have been set in New York City. This is not one of them. Quindlen, however, is a confident writer, and her characters are elegantly drawn. She wryly acknowledges via one of the characters that their problems indeed are ‘first world problems’ and other characters reiterate this a few more times through the book. Thus forewarned, a reader can settle down to enjoy this gentle portrayal of the dissolution of a marriage, even if one can’t particularly empathize with any of the central characters.

Nora is the main such character, and the problem is that she has no real problems. She is healthy, fit, pretty, in her 40s, and never worries about her appearance or clothing or age or job. She has no professional or domestic concerns, to an almost ridiculous degree. Even their nanny, Charity, is conveniently single, childless and utterly devoted to the Nolans and their children: “she was always on time, never refused to stay late”.

As a well meaning liberal, Nora is conscious of the fact that all the families on the block are white while all their employees are black and brown. Still, she has little interest or empathy for their lives. She makes a misguided visit to Ricky when he is in hospital, and is thrown out by his angry wife who asks, pointedly “You bring his van back fixed up? You bring my rent money?” Most people would be taken aback by this rejection of their good intentions, but Nora remains unruffled. Perhaps this impenetrable calm is what attracts her employers, but it also makes her a rather boring character.

The differences between the privileged homeowners and their help are at the center of this novel, but in the background. Rumaan Alam’s latest novel, That Kind of Mother, is along the same lines but was better done, I thought.

Alternate Side is a novel about the rich and powerful which is neither rich nor powerful, but is a pleasant read for all that.

Alternate Side, by Anna Quindlen. Random House, 2018