{"product_id":"morningside-heights-isbn-9780525566632","title":"Morningside Heights","description":"\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e Editors' Choice Book • When Ohio-born Pru Steiner arrives in New York in 1976, she follows in a long tradition of young people determined to take the city by storm. But when she falls in love with and marries Spence Robin, her hotshot young Shakespeare professor, her life takes a turn she couldn’t have anticipated.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Thirty years later, something is wrong with Spence. The Great Man can’t concentrate; he falls asleep reading \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e. With their daughter, Sarah, away at medical school, Pru must struggle on her own to care for him. One day, feeling especially isolated, Pru meets a man, and the possibility of new romance blooms. Meanwhile, Spence’s estranged son from his first marriage has come back into their lives. Arlo, a wealthy entrepreneur who invests in biotech, may be his father’s last, best hope.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights \u003c\/i\u003eis a sweeping and compassionate novel about a marriage surviving hardship. It’s about the love between women and men, and children and parents; about the things we give up in the face of adversity; and about how to survive when life turns out differently from what we thought we signed up for.\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eA\u003ci\u003e New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e Editors' Choice Book \u003cb\u003e• \u003cb\u003eBest Fiction of the Year - \u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune \u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e•\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/i\u003e's Most Highly Anticipated New Books\u003ci\u003e \u003cb\u003e•\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e38 Novels You Need to Read this Summer - \u003ci\u003eLit Hub\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e• \u003c\/i\u003eOne of\u003c\/b\u003e Good Morning America's 27 Books for June\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e•\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Millions\u003c\/i\u003e Most Anticipated \u003cb\u003e•\u003c\/b\u003e Best Book of the Year - \u003ci\u003eBookmarks Magazine \u003cb\u003e•\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eTop Jewish Pop Cultural Stories - \u003ci\u003eJewish Telegraphic Agency \u003cb\u003e•\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eAlma\u003c\/i\u003e’s Favorite Books for Summer\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“An intimate portrait of a marriage . . . A literary examination of love in later life, \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e highlights the complexities of monogamy, family, and love.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Zibby Owens, Good Morning America\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Henkin's] story of a brilliant Shakespearean and his wife—once his student—radiates a tenderness for the city that we, his intended readers, can best appreciate—perhaps now most of all, as we ask our city to return to us . . . Henkin is a fine writer with a wry fondness for his characters, but like any New Yorker he knows how to keep a safe distance. The specific letting-go that all New Yorkers must master if we don’t wish to be crippled by nostalgia—especially now, if we do hope to see our city’s resurgence—is particularly nuanced when a city neighborhood is also a college town, but Henkin more than meets this challenge.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Jean Hanff Korelitz,\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Henkin has explored the exigencies of marriage and families (especially recombined families) through unflinching yet kind depictions of the ways we live now . . . His thoughtful new novel, \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e, proves no exception . . . Notably and satisfyingly, much of \"Morningside\" takes place against a New York City that is clearly beloved to its author. Henkin tours a wealth of landmarks and neighborhoods with authority and affection . . . Quietly told, the story nonetheless pulses with insistence: Attention must be paid. This subtle urgency opens our own awareness, lens-like, upon the implied human task, larger than any single calamity—that of attending to relentless change, loss, finitude.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Joan Frank, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Joshua Henkin is an emotionally generous, deft, witty, and deeply intelligent writer, and his new novel displays these qualities in spades.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Priscilla Gillman, \u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e] is generous, wise, and wry enough to avoid sentimentality . . . Astonishingly, Henkin transforms what could be a mighty grim work of fiction into a melancholy and tender one enriched by the viewpoints of a constellation of chcaracters.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Elizabeth Taylor, The National Book Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Nuanced and sensitive . . . a deeply human portrait of deterioration.”  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Emily Temple, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eLit Hub\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The task of writing the story of a family dealing with the devastating impact of early-onset Alzheimer’s—without veering into sentimentality, or collapsing beneath the weight of melancholy—isn’t an easy one. But Joshua Henkin’s \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e manages to tell the story of Pru and her husband Spence, once a great Shakespearean scholar and professor, with such deep humanity and kindness that I forgave him for also having managed to write a page-turner (though it still feels slightly unfair to be able to do both). The novel is a portrait of a family in all its complexity and an exploration of care work—both paid and unpaid—the latter of which makes it feel especially timely.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Lit Hub\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“What a glorious book \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e is, all held together by the amazing character of Spence.  I just loved it to pieces.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Elizabeth Strout\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In the sheer pleasure of reading Joshua Henkin’s new novel—of following its swift narrative movements, getting to know its all-too-human characters, inhabiting its detail-perfect settings, its relentlessly accurate portrayals—of marriage and parenthood and siblinghood—we can almost forget, for moments on end, that its subject is one of the most painful imaginable: the loss of a self, of a marriage, of a shared life. But the real magic of \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e is the way it lifts us up, reminding us that ordinary people undertake extraordinary acts of survival every day.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Julie Orringer\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What does it really mean: in sickness and in health, till death do us part? \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e knows the answer. In this tender, wise, and unflinching novel, Joshua Henkin traces the bittersweet arc of a lifelong love, with all its joy and pain.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Tom Perrotta\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You know a novel is good when the thought of leaving the world it creates and the people who live there fills you with sadness and a profound sense of loss.  Joshua Henkin’s \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e is just such a novel.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Richard Russo\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Reading \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e is an emotional experience. How much can befall a marriage, and what extraordinary demands must sometimes be met for loved ones to endure. But it is a delightful read as well, because the people here are such thoroughly engaging company. So much that happens in this book is unexpected that it reads at the pace of a suspense novel, but its greatest achievement is to make us feel that we are in the presence of real people, living out their joys and sorrows and making their way in the real world.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Sigrid Nunez\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Poignant . . . The book intimately explores both the ravages of [Alzheimer's] and its impact on family members and other caregivers . . . And it finds some relief from despair in the redemptive power of love . . . Touching and tenderly depicted.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Julia M. Klein,\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003eThe Forward\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Painfully authentic . . . Henkin tells his story simply and deftly, with a narrative economy that conceals much close observation and human understanding.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Adam Kirsch, The Jewish Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A propulsive, literary page-turner . . . \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e is not only a study in craft, but a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit . . . \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e reads like an ode to New York as it maps a narrative of loss, and asks us to consider what it means to live and love, where our faith lies, and what we leave behind.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Sara Lippman, \u003ci\u003eVol. 1 Brooklyn\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A moving look at how families cope with unforeseen events and how relationships evolve.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eJewish Book Council\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“With its impeccable plotting, well-drawn characters, and balanced deployment of wit and feeling, \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e offers all the pleasures promised by Henkin’s rigorous narrative attention—in aggregate:  a pleasure of precision.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Brooklyn Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A family drama filled with compelling characters . . . The essence of the novel is universal, particularly its deft yet raw depictions of what it’s like to live, day by day, minute by minute, with an utterly cruel disease . . . \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e is a courageous novel, and a moving one.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Abigail Pickus, \u003ci\u003eHadassah Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A beautifully written novel . . . \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e is incredible.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eEmily Burack, \u003ci\u003eAlma\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e“Morningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e is a lovely novel, and a moving meditation on how the act of loving a specific person changes us. When Pru Steiner’s marriage to Spence Robin is tragically cut short, she has to take stock of who she has become in the intervening years. Henkin has written a beautifully nuanced story that I was unable to put down.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Ann Napolitano, author of\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eDEAR EDWARD\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Henkin has managed to inject humor as well as pathos into a searing portrait of a family in crisis. . . . \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e is beautifully written, and nothing mars the undeniable power of this poignant and very intelligent novel.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Rita D. Jacobs, \u003ci\u003eWorld Literature Today\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“Morningside Heights\u003c\/i\u003e is a lovely and bittersweet ode to the challenges of partnership and parenting, as well as a fond tribute to New York City. It is an especially worthwhile exploration of memory and identity, and the spaces where the two intersect.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Sarah Rachel Egelman, \u003ci\u003eBookreporter\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Henkin brilliantly conveys the complexities of a New York City family in this humane, compulsively readable tale . . . In 2006, Shakespeare scholar Spence Robin, 57, is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, and his wife, Pru Steiner, is forced to return his book advance . . . [Henkin] shows how Spence was a wunderkind in Columbia’s English department, making the tragedy of his illness particularly poignant . . . Equally well handled is Pru’s transformation from wife and lover to caretaker—wrenching changes that Henkin conveys without dissolving into sentimentality or cliché, but rather leaving readers with a kernel of hope. This is a stunning achievement.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Publishers Weekly \u003c\/i\u003e(starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A superstar literature professor is struck down in his prime in the cruelest possible way . . . Henkin specializes in melancholy stories about complicated families, and this one is a real heartbreaker. His portrait of Pru is nuanced and sensitive, following her into one of the darkest places a spouse can go and hitting the notes just right . . . Caring for a spouse with Alzheimer′s is an ever more common heartbreak, illuminated by this tender portrait of a marriage.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Kirkus Reviews\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Henkin explores with great tenderness the many, many challenges of losing a loved one to Alzheimer′s . . . It’s impossible not to be moved . . . Despite this, \u003ci\u003eMorningside Heights \u003c\/i\u003eis not, ultimately, a sad novel.  Henkin imbues it with a sense of hope, a kind of appreciation for the mundane moments that make up a life . . . In Henkin’s masterful hands, this story of everyday events becomes bigger than the sum of its parts, a novel that explores what it means—and what it takes—to love another person, and to be loved in return.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eKerry McHugh\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e, Shelf Awareness\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Henkin traces the complications of a complicated disease with insight, honesty and humanity, in a style that is as readable as it is consummately literate.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Library Journal\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A moving, heart-wrenching account of a family’s connections as they face a slow-moving goodbye.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Booklist\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eJOSHUA HENKIN \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of the novels \u003ci\u003eSwimming Across the Hudson \u003c\/i\u003e(a \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times \u003c\/i\u003eNotable Book), \u003ci\u003eMatrimony \u003c\/i\u003e(a \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003eNotable Book), and \u003ci\u003eThe World Without You \u003c\/i\u003e(winner of the 2012 Edward Lewis Wallant Award for American Jewish Fiction and a finalist for the 2012 National Jewish Book Award). He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and directs the MFA program in Fiction Writing at Brooklyn College.1\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Growing up in Bexley, in the suburbs of Columbus, Pru had been drawn to the older boys, thinking they could take her far from home. Her father was from Brooklyn, her mother from Manhattan’s Upper East Side, but they met in the middle of the country, in Ann Arbor, at a freshman mixer in 1944. Pru’s father was studying engineering, and when he graduated he went to work for GM. But he wasn’t cut out for the auto industry, for its assembly lines and economies of scale, and Pru’s mother didn’t like Detroit and its suburbs—Ten Mile Road, Eleven Mile Road, Twelve Mile Road—everything measured in a car. But Pru’s father was happy in the Midwest, and when an opportunity arose in Columbus, he settled on it. And on Torah Academy, where Pru, as a kindergartner, was dropped off every morning at eight o’clock.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Pru liked the Hebrew songs, liked apples dipped in honey on Rosh Hashanah, liked staying home on Passover and eating matzo brei. But kindergarten became first grade became second became third, and she started to feel constrained. She had an older brother, Hank, but they weren’t close; it was just her and the other students in her class. “Torah Academy’s so Jewish,” she told her parents.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Well, it \u003ci\u003eis \u003c\/i\u003ea Jewish school,” her mother said.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e In eighth grade, on a trip to New York, the students were taken to the Streit’s Matzo Factory, and to Ratner’s for lunch. Years later, living in New York, Pru went out to La Difference, a kosher French restaurant, ostensibly high-end, but when she tasted her food, she told her friend Camille, “La Difference is this food sucks.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Pru’s mother wasn’t Orthodox—she’d agreed to keep a kosher home for Pru’s father—and one time, a friend of Pru’s saw Pru’s mother at a restaurant eating breaded shrimp. When Pru confronted her, her mother said that when Pru turned eighteen she could eat as much breaded shrimp as she wanted to.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Was that why she was attracted to older men? If she couldn’t be eighteen, she would go out with boys who were eighteen. In seventh grade, she dated a tenth grader, captain of the JV basketball team. In high school, she went out with a young man soon to graduate from Ohio State.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She was two months shy of her eighteenth birthday when she arrived at Yale in 1972. There was breaded shrimp to be had everywhere, but a curious thing happened those first few weeks at college. It wasn’t that she missed her parents, though late at night, listening to her sleeping roommates, she would think of her family back in Ohio and grow teary-eyed. She lay in her dorm in her OHIOANS FOR MCGOVERN T-shirt while Derek and the Dominos looked down at her from the wall. She shivered: wasn’t it supposed to be warmer on the East Coast? Fall had come early that year, and, walking across Old Campus, she was already wearing a parka. Torah Academy was eons ago—she’d gone to public high school, where her graduating class had been four hundred strong—but she wasn’t prepared to be so far from home. Torah Academy had seemed too small and too Jewish; now Yale seemed too big and not Jewish enough.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She was no longer forced to keep kosher, but to her surprise, she continued to. Then spring came and along with it Passover, and she was answering questions from her secular Jewish friends, who weren’t quite as secular as she’d thought. Why weren’t peanuts kosher for Passover? Beer they understood, but corn and rice? And was it hypocritical to eat your cheeseburger on matzo?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She was again dating an older man, a graduate student in history, the president of the Yale chapter of SDS. Returning from services one Friday night, she joined him at an antiwar rally. \u003ci\u003eOne, two, three, four, we don’t want your fucking war! Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, NLF is gonna win! \u003c\/i\u003eBut when someone passed her the megaphone, she handed it back to him because she wasn’t allowed to use a megaphone on Shabbat.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She did theater at Yale, and when she moved to New York she tried to make a go of it as an actor. Camille had done theater at Yale, too, and they dreamed of starring onstage together. They found an apartment in the West Village and worked as temps. When their bosses weren’t looking, they would leave work early for auditions. “Ah, the casting couch,” Camille said.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Would you do that?” Pru said. “Sleep with someone to get a part?”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Why not?”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Pru wondered: Was she less ambitious than Camille? Was she simply a prude?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e One day, Camille announced that she was quitting theater. She was tired of temping, tired of auditioning for terrible parts. Secretly she’d applied to law school. She was starting NYU in the fall.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Maybe she was wrong, Pru thought: maybe \u003ci\u003eshe \u003c\/i\u003ewas the more ambitious one.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Or maybe she just clung to things. She had a new boyfriend, forty-seven when she was only twenty-two. “My God,” she told Camille, as if she’d only just realized it. “Matthew’s more than double my age.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Well, good for you!” Camille said.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e For a time there was talk about marrying Matthew. At least Matthew was talking about it, and Pru, flattered, started to talk about it, too. Convention be damned, she thought, even as she cleaved to her own conventions, keeping two sets of dishes, one for milk and one for meat, making sure on Friday evenings before the sun set to extinguish the joint she’d been smoking.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But eventually, she and Matthew broke up, and she moved uptown and started graduate school at Columbia, in the doctoral program in English literature.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Her first day of class she looked up from her seminar table and saw Spence Robin, her Shakespeare professor, enter the room. He was only six years older than she was, but he was the professor, Columbia’s rising star, so when she passed him on a snowy afternoon outside Chock full o’Nuts, she glanced away.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Are you pretending to be shy, Ms. Steiner?” That was how he addressed the class—Ms. Steiner, Mr. Jones, Mr. Thompson, Ms. Dunleavy—doing it with an edge of humor, as if it were a mild joke. “We do spend most of our day outside the classroom. It’s not like we just materialize in Philosophy Hall.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e A gale blew past them, and Spence’s jacket collar flapped up to his ears. His shock of auburn hair was covered in snow, and Pru was tempted to offer him her hat. But her hat was pink, and if she gave it to him, then \u003ci\u003eshe \u003c\/i\u003ewould get covered in snow, and she knew he wouldn’t countenance that.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e They seated themselves in Chock full o’Nuts. “The coffee’s terrible here,” Spence said.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Pru agreed, though she was inured to terrible coffee. She drank terrible coffee most days, often from Chock full o’Nuts.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Spence removed a packet of peanuts. It was an old habit, he explained, a product of his fast metabolism. He’d been so thin as a boy he’d been sent to summer camp by the Fresh Air Fund, and when he failed to gain more than a few pounds, he got to stay for an extra two weeks.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The snow was falling harder now; at this rate, they’d be skiing home. Pru said, “Are we going to talk about \u003ci\u003eCoriolanus\u003c\/i\u003e?”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Do you \u003ci\u003ewant \u003c\/i\u003eto talk about \u003ci\u003eCoriolanus\u003c\/i\u003e?”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “As long as you don’t make me recite.” It was what Spence did in class, saying that word, \u003ci\u003erecite, \u003c\/i\u003ewith the same little ironical smile he wore when he called her \u003ci\u003eMs. Steiner\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “How about you tell me where you’re from?”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Under the influence of the coffee, and urged on by the wind coming through the open door, Pru started to loosen. She was from the suburbs of Columbus, she said.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Sounds like a tautology to me.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She surprised herself by saying, “You little snob!”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Little?”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It was true: he must have been six feet tall.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “And what’s in the suburbs of Columbus?”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Oh, just a bunch of complicated Jewish families like mine.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Another tautology?”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “So you know about complicated Jewish families?”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “I come from one.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e This surprised her. With his rangy, slender frame, his pale face, and thatch of red hair, he put her in mind of the Irish countryside. And Spence—she thought of Spencer Tracy—not to mention his last name—Robin—well, you could have fooled her.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “My Christian name is Shulem,” he said.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “That doesn’t sound very Christian to me.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e In kindergarten, he said, he’d changed his name to Spence. At five, he became an Anglo-Saxon, at six a Francophile. “It’s the old immigrant story. I was trying to escape the Lower East Side.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Well, you’ve done a good job.” He was the youngest tenured member of the English department; the author, at thirty, of an award-winning book; a guest on PBS with Bill Moyers. “You’re not still religious, are you?”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He laughed. His paternal grandfather had been a rabbi in Lithuania, but his parents’ god had been Communism. He hadn’t even been Bar Mitzvahed. One Yom Kippur, he’d gone to the Museum of Natural History to stare up at the great blue whale.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She told him about growing up Orthodox in the Midwest, how she’d moved to New York to become an actor. “So here I am,” she said, as if everything she’d done—leaving Columbus, going to Yale, moving to New York to do theater—was in order to be seated where she was now, having coffee with Spence Robin.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “I could never be an actor,” he said. “I don’t like to perform.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “That’s not what I heard.” His lectures were said to be packed to the rafters; people were up in the nosebleed seats.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Acting’s different,” he said. “I’m a shy man.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Yet here he was, talking to her—talking to this stranger.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But then he stopped talking, and she became shy herself. The snow had tapered off, and with the weather no longer keeping them indoors, she thought she should make her getaway. She got up, and he followed her.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “That’s me,” she said, in front of her building.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “And that’s me.” Spence pointed up Claremont Avenue. “If I work on my arm, I could throw snowballs at your balcony.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “I’d like that.” And then, feeling foolish—she wanted him to throw snowballs at her balcony?—she rushed inside.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e ###","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304299417829,"sku":"NP9780525566632","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780525566632.jpg?v=1767732979","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/morningside-heights-isbn-9780525566632","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}