Review: Why We Came To The City

Why We Came to the City is one of those books about a group of friends navigating life in their twenties and thirties. This story centers around vivacious Sara Sherman, who works as an editor, and her awkward astronomer boyfriend George Murphy. They hold on tightly to their two best friends-artist Irene Richmond and poet Jacob Blaumann. The four friends expect the usual ups and downs of relationships and careers, but they are forced to reevaluate everything when one of them becomes seriously ill.

The novel is based around the title. The book opens by noting the slightly stubborn persistence of college graduates who live in a city where you pay too much for rent, and make too little in your paycheck, and try to find friends while simultaneously missing home and vowing to never return. Kristopher Jansma perfectly captures the feeling of throwing all of yourself into a new life in a new place and then discovering just how much you get in return. As you read, you can feel as the characters are slowly and surely weighed down by the harsh realities of life instead of experiencing the happiness and opportunities they were sure would come to them.

This book probably can't escape from comparisons to A Little Life and The Interestings, but this book succeeds in being less soul crushing than the first and, dare we say, more interesting than the second. Of the three books, it tackles the question of "being special" head on. Many of us grow up as big fish in small ponds and then we move to the big city and find that what made us shine in a class of 100 or get the lead role in a drama department of 40 doesn't get us a job at all. Each of the characters here are explicitly told that they are not special and it is that moment, as they are each doing their best to do good work, care for their loved ones, and still get a few hours of sleep, that each of them grasps an important and terrible lesson.

"...those three words stuck in Sara's side like tiny prickers. For she was special, and had always believed it. She was more punctual, and she was better prepared. Driven harder and by purer purpose. Kinder to others and more loyal...And yet she couldn't save Irene by trying hardest or being best. Because no one was immune to tragedy. No matter how respectfully Sara lived, death could not respect her in return. She, Irene, all of them were susceptible to collapse, regardless of preparations or punctuality or propriety. None of them were special."

Why We Came to the City bounces from viewpoint to viewpoint as we discover what is really going on in the heads and hearts of each character. The writing is insightful and lovely, to the point that you may find yourself wondering if Jansma has been eavesdropping on your conversations about the frustration of your job or the evolution of a friendship. This is a book for the reader who loves great writing, for the man setting off for a big adventure in the city, and for the woman wondering why she went to the city in the first place.


My review of Jansma's The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards 


Why We Came to the City
By Kristopher Jansma
Viking February 2016
418 pages
From the library

Review: The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

By Kristopher Jansma

Viking March 2013

251 pages

From the library 

Our narrator in this novel is an unnamed writer. He begins the book by explaining that he has lost every book he has ever written. He then proceeds to tell you the story of his life, or at least some versions of his life, beginning when he was a child who wrote a book in an airport terminal while waiting for his mother. The reader then follows him to college where he meets two people who will forever affect his life - a fellow writer and an enchanting actress. The threesome will travel the world where they will fall in and out of love and friendship, take on new identities, bask in glorious successes and hit their absolute lowest points. But as our narrator warns us, "these stories are all true, but only somewhere else." 

This is a fantastic debut novel. It deals with love and loss, friendship and fame, and what it means to be a writer. In spite of these important issues, it's a breeze to read and one of those books you will find yourself carrying everywhere just to sneak in a few more pages. While the characters are constantly evolving (or being rewritten), they are easy to love (or at least love to hate, in some moments). There were portions of this book that reminded me of both Donna Tartt's The Secret History and Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys, but I enjoyed this book and its characters much more. 

This is the story, or rather several stories, of an unreliable narrator. After I finished the book, there was a part of me that was tempted to immediately start it over in order to try to ascertain which version was the truth. But then I realized I really didn't care - each story was wonderful in its own right and deciding that one was the truth and the others made-up wouldn't diminish that. As our narrator himself says, "Maybe I'll continue with the truth. Maybe I won't. Would you know either way? Would you care, truly? Or perhaps I'll be long gone by then; who can say? We're all just travelers, after all, telling stories, passing time."

I'm a sucker for an unreliable narrator and a love of story that is obvious on every page. Kristopher Jansma accomplishes all this and more in a book that is certainly one of my favorite books in April, if not 2013.