If supermodel Kate Moss and superpopstar Taylor Swift had a love child, I am convinced it would be Kathleen Alcott. But super looks aside, this young woman is super talented and has written what I am confident will be one of my favorite books this year. And because I loved it so much, I want everyone to read it and love it just as much as I did! I loved it so much that if you read it and don’t love it, I probably won’t be able to take it, and I certainly won’t want to hear about it. But I will still like you. Probably.
Kathleen Alcott’s Infinite Home is the story of misfits and castaways connected by their physical home—a New York brownstone managed by Edith, a widow, who is estranged from her adult children. Edith’s residents include Edward, the depressed stand-up comic who is no longer funny; Adeleine, a gorgeous and anxious agoraphobe, who connects to life through things, not people; Thomas a young artist rediscovering life after a stroke; and my favorite, Paulie, a thirty year old man living with Williams Syndrome and the innocence and wonderment of a child.
At the start of Edith’s declining health, her absent son Owen intervenes seeking to evict everyone and take over the building. This threat creates fear, connection, and experiences the the tenants could have never imagined. The result is at times humorous and heart wrenching.
The writing is lovely. I went back over a number of the passages… needing to savor them more. Passages like these:
Regarding Edith’s husband’s death:
“In the first months without him, Edith marveled at how many different types of quiet there could be.”
A glimpse of the endearing Paulie:
“One night he got out the Christmas decorations Claudia had asked him to please leave in the closet for the rest of the year and he pulled out the string of white lights that pulsed. He brought them up to Thomas’s floor and bunched them into a knot and put them in a big glass jar and plugged them in right next to his door. Hell thought Thomas would like how he had put everything bright in one place and tangled it all together.”
It’s because of sweet Paulie, that I want to travel to see the magic of the fireflies. Read Infinite Home and you will want to go too.
5 Stars