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The Astral

3.25 of 5 stars 3.25 · rating details · 748 ratings · 175 reviews

From the PEN/Faulkner Award–winning author of The Great Man, a scintillating novel of love, loss, and literary rivalry set in rapidly changing Brooklyn.

The Astral is a huge rose-colored old pile of an apartment building in the gentrifying neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. For decades it was the happy home (or so he thought) of the poet Harry Quirk and his wife, Luz,...more

ebook, 240 pages

Published June 14th 2011 by Doubleday

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Nov 03, 2011 Elyse rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Quite frankly, this book left me thinking, "Who cares?" Harry is a 57-year-old man who has just been kicked out by his wife. He spends the next 300 pages documenting how he hangs out around the city, gets a job, gets fired, gets another job, and hangs out around the city some more. His wife comes off as mentally unstable, and he comes off as a self-righteous, depressing man in a mid-life crisis.
The story I was looking forward to was that of his son, Hector, who has recently joined a religious c...more

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Aug 06, 2011 christa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In 1975, the world was overrun with infants named Christine or Kiersten or Kristen. At least this is how my mom imagined it. My dad, in a fit of divine improvisation, plucked a variation out of the sky. He invented the name Christa. He just made it up. Took two syllables, rammed them together and bam a name -- according to family lore.

Strangers marveled at it. Relatives older than 50 bumbled it. (Even my dad eventually misspelled it on a permission slip). And for six years I was the only Christ...more

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Jun 19, 2011 Felice rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Author Kate Christensen seems to specialize in writing novels about people you would never in a thousand years want to spend any time with if you met them in real life. So what kind of voodoo writer magic has to happen for an author to make you enjoy a book even though you dislike the main character? Beats me but Kate Christensen has it. Read The Epicure's Lament or Jeremy Thrane or The Great Man. Don't however read her newest novel, The Astral and expect the same magic. The Astral is the story...more

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Nov 17, 2011 Pam rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio

Wow this book was something else. I would first recommend it to anyone wanting to increase their vocabulary. I have never heard so many different adjectives and combined-hyphenated words in a book before. I know of no one who speaks like these characters. In fact the characters are people that I would probably never spend time with. Harry the main character is a poet who does not have a job except for occasionally publishing poems. He gets kicked out of his house by his wife, Luz,a nurse who mor...more

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Jun 14, 2011 Yvonne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Parents of adult children, women 35+

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The Astral is a very well-written novel that is worth checking out. The characters are genuine and believable, with exception to one, but I'll get into that later. The main character, Harry Quirk, is a middle-aged poet struggling with the erosion of his 30 year marriage. Kate Christensen does an outstanding job of narrating from the male perspective. Harry is easy for the reader to connect with despite the fact that he is far from perfect. He has stumbled in the past, but is innocent of his wife...more The Astral is a very well-written novel that is worth checking out. The characters are genuine and believable, with exception to one, but I'll get into that later. The main character, Harry Quirk, is a middle-aged poet struggling with the erosion of his 30 year marriage. Kate Christensen does an outstanding job of narrating from the male perspective. Harry is easy for the reader to connect with despite the fact that he is far from perfect. He has stumbled in the past, but is innocent of his wife Luz's current accusations of an affair, leading to much heartache and frustration. This comes through vividly without being depressing to read.

I really enjoyed the storylines involving Harry's adult children Hector and Karina. Karina leads a freegan lifestyle, dumpster diving to obtain discarded goods in order to "redistribute them to the poor". She also happens to be gay, but the topic is not explored with any depth. Harry and Luz are accepting of her orientation, and it is merely a descriptor such as her age or hair color. (I mention this because if you are looking for a book that delves into the subject of parents coming to terms with a child coming out, then this is not that book.) I found the freeganism to be quite interesting and I liked Karina's fiesty personality. Hector's sub-plot of joining a religious cult was facinating. As I read the main plot about Harry and Luz's shambles of a marriage, I found myself hoping that the next chapter would involve another visit to the cult's compound.

So why four stars instead of five? Well, first of all, not a whole lot happens in The Astral. It was quite well-written and held my attention tightly enough to read it cover-to-cover in two sittings, however, there was no a-ha moment that made me jump out of my seat. Also, I found Luz to be less than believable. What devout, Bible-thumping Catholic would barely bat an eye at her daughter's homosexuality and shrug her shoulders at her son's claim to be the Second-Coming of Christ??? I fully expected her to react strongly or as Harry puts it, "storm in there and go all Catholic on him". I suppose the author was emphasizing how defeated and resigned Luz had become, but I really wanted her to reignite that passion within herself and rise to the occasion!

Well, with that being said, I do recommend The Astral. It is a remarkable piece of work that Kate Christensen can be proud of. It is deep, thoughtful, and slightly melancholy without being depressing or too heavy; a tough balance to achieve. I intend to read more of her novels in the future.

Please note that I received a complimentary copy of The Astral from the publisher, which has in no way influenced my review.(less)

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Sep 22, 2011 drea rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It is Read A Novel About A Crumbling Marriage Month, didn't you know? Or is that just in my house? All I know is that I keep picking them, sometime consciously like with Tyler's THE AMATEUR MARRIAGE, sometimes unconsciously like this time, with THE ASTRAL. It is not about a guy on a bike, guys... Well, I mean, okay, it is kind of about a guy on a bike, but what you can't see in the jacket image is that his name is Harry Quirk, he is a POET, and he is SAD because his wife has tossed him out of th...more It is Read A Novel About A Crumbling Marriage Month, didn't you know? Or is that just in my house? All I know is that I keep picking them, sometime consciously like with Tyler's THE AMATEUR MARRIAGE, sometimes unconsciously like this time, with THE ASTRAL. It is not about a guy on a bike, guys... Well, I mean, okay, it is kind of about a guy on a bike, but what you can't see in the jacket image is that his name is Harry Quirk, he is a POET, and he is SAD because his wife has tossed him out of their home after many years of marriage. She found his new book of poems, and they are all about other women... other imaginary women, but Luz is past caring about that detail, at this point.

It was interesting to read this so soon after THE AMATEUR MARRIAGE, since the core of the novels are so similar--a long marriage that has weathered many serious ups and downs suddenly cracks because of something that may seem insignificant but is, in the context of this particular marriage, a Giant Anvil of Doom. In THE AMATEUR MARRIAGE, it's the realization at an anniversary party that all they remember as a couple are the fights. In THE ASTRAL, it's the false accusation of an affair (and not the affair that Harry actually did have, and which the couple survived). The two books even share a child gone rouge plot--Sally, a Beatnik who ends up in a cultish rehabilitation facility, and Hector in a pseudo-Christian cult on Long Island. And yet despite all that, the two books feel completely different. I like that. It was entirely unplanned, yet seeing the same story filtered through two different author brains and ending up in different places was a nice "ahhhhhhhh" moment in my understanding of storytelling.

I ended up liking THE ASTRAL a bit more, although I think it may be because Harry's first person perspective allowed for a front-row seat to the internal process that happens when the habits of a decades-old relationship is forced out of the bloodstream. And Christensen does that very, very well. I've read people complain that there is no plot, but there so is... it's just not an external one. The fact that she gets Harry from Emotional Point A to Z is impressive, and I love each and every conversation that he had on his way. She's a cerebral writer, in all the best ways. Also loved the portrait of Greenpoint and its many cultures (e.g. Polish, Hasidic, and Lecherous Retired Poets).

At the end of the day, I think I maybe wanted a little more understanding of Luz, but that may have meant breaking the perspective and so had to be sacrificed. I also thought it was a little odd that we hardly got any memories of Harry's children as children--he's never painted as a particularly fatherly person, but it feels somewhat disingenuous to have all of these memories of Luz and none of those are really tied to their children. I'm not calling foul, just odd.

Now I should probably go reread THE KREUTZER SONATA, just to keep with the theme of things. (less)

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Jun 10, 2011 Tess Malone rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was sent a reviewer's copy of the novel recently and because I had just read an intriguing article in the June issue of ELLE by Christensen about the draw of the male narrator to her, I immediately started reading. I can understand why Christensen has taken advantage of a male voice for this novel. When we meet Harry Quirk he has just be thrown out of his apartment (housed in the famous Astral) and decades long marriage to Luz after she mistakenly believes the poems he's been writing are about...more I was sent a reviewer's copy of the novel recently and because I had just read an intriguing article in the June issue of ELLE by Christensen about the draw of the male narrator to her, I immediately started reading. I can understand why Christensen has taken advantage of a male voice for this novel. When we meet Harry Quirk he has just be thrown out of his apartment (housed in the famous Astral) and decades long marriage to Luz after she mistakenly believes the poems he's been writing are about an affair with his best friend, Marion. Harry is more in denial than embittered and as we watch him struggle to comprehend his marriage is really over we get some fascinating insights on the male psyche. Christensen pulls these off and Harry feels like a real man and not some female author projecting her relationship to men on to this character. He is contradictory, circuitous in his thinking, and often infuriating. However he is much more interesting to the reader than the stereotypical woman scorned we often find in novels about divorce. Not to say that the women in the novel aren't multi-dimensional and interesting because with the exception of Luz (whose side we only hear in the final somewhat anticlimactic ten pages of the novel) they are witty, strong, and spirited and help to demonstrate that Harry's respect for powerful women means that he does not respect himself and cannot find his bearings amongst them. The infamous Marion is particularly well sketched- complex, full of quirks and history with Harry. As the alleged mistress, she is awarded more sympathy than Luz and was always my favorite character to read.

However, if this isn't already apparent, the novel suffers from almost no plot. We watch Harry treading water with the shore in sight, but no obvious way for him to get there. The process of letting go and discovering who you are is difficult and slow going, but the writing was occasionally turgid as a consequence of this. Christensen tries to add conflict with Harry's two offbeat children, so fringe that they were clearly contrived. There's Karina the freegan lesbian daughter (yes, really) and Hector who is about to become the leader of a religious cult so haphazardly thrown in that it felt like a separate novel whenever a chapter was devoted to his story.

Although Harry is a fully reazlied and well-worded narrator, the book is too slow to be truly great.(less)

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Oct 07, 2011 Kristen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Collapsed marriages. A family divided. Friends choosing sides. Jobs lost. Cult movements. This "novel" really isn't a novel at all, but rather a glimpse into the life of Harry Quirk, and to a lesser extent, a look at his crazy "all-American" family. The family is actually the opposite of the quintessential "American" family, whatever that means, but that is probably the point. Harry is a fifty-something, has-been, practically homeless washed-up (ex?) poet. There were plenty of things about Harry...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Laurel-Rain rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After living in the old, genteel building in Brooklyn throughout his marriage, Harry Quirk has come to take his life there for granted. But throughout his thirty year marriage to Luz, there have been turbulent shifts beneath the seemingly placid surface of their union that have finally broken through and disrupted the balance. Luz has kicked Harry out, accusing him of infidelity with his friend Marion, and despite his innocence, she will not hear anything that challenges her strong belief system...more

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Aug 15, 2011 Miriam rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Enjoyed, but wouldn't recommend. It was the kind of book that captured my attention while I was reading it, but quickly left my thoughts after I put it back on my bookshelf (part of the reason I'm trying out Good Reads). One thing I did enjoy is how she plays with the narrator, Harry, to so completely manipulate our interpretation of events.

I'm a fan of realism (especially after reading a novel like The Tiger's Wife or Swamplandia!) but I have to agree with what Daniel Handler said in the Sunday ...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Mary (BookHounds) rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, from-publisher-author

Harry Quirk has just been thrown out of his apartment (The Astral building) by his wife, Luz, when she suspects him of writing poems for another women, her best friend, Marion. Harry doesn't understand what happened and seems more confused than anything about his impending divorce. The author does a wonderful job relating this divorce through a man's point of view. Harry seems lost and his two children (also outsiders) don't really know how to deal with him. Their conflict with Harry doesn't see...more

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Aug 05, 2011 Jessica added it · review of another edition

Shelves: can-t-read-now

The thing about my Kindle is that while I read it, I can't engage in one of my worst reading practices--skimming. Wait, my two worst habits, skimming and reading the last pages. Sometimes at the height of total freak about a character (will she live?) or plot (does the earthquake ever stop?), I find myself flipping the pages of a hard copy just to calm my beating heart.

Worst case is that I've had it with the book, but I just can't put it down until I know if the marriage will survive or all will...more

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Jun 28, 2011 Amanda rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: new-york

I'm giving this one more star than I would have, had it not been for the book's setting in my neighborhood. I enjoyed the (mostly) veiled references to landmarks in the neighborhood, and characters that I'm sure I've encountered in bars and on the sidewalks around my house. The main character...not so much.

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Feb 28, 2012 Bonnie Brody rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Astral, by Kate Christensen, gets its title by way of its namesake, the Astral building in Brooklyn, New York. This building houses the protagonist of this book, an aging poet named Harry Quirk. His last name befits him and his family. They are interestingly dysfunctional in many ways.

Harry was once a somewhat well-known poet, teaching poetry workshops and writing his lyrical poems in rhyming and sonnet style. His publisher and mentor has moved to Europe and his style is now out of favor in...more The Astral, by Kate Christensen, gets its title by way of its namesake, the Astral building in Brooklyn, New York. This building houses the protagonist of this book, an aging poet named Harry Quirk. His last name befits him and his family. They are interestingly dysfunctional in many ways.

Harry was once a somewhat well-known poet, teaching poetry workshops and writing his lyrical poems in rhyming and sonnet style. His publisher and mentor has moved to Europe and his style is now out of favor in the United States. His wife, Luz, decides after thirty years of marriage that Harry is having an affair with his best friend, Marion. Despite Harry's pleading innocence - and he is innocent - Luz does not believe him and she kicks him out of their apartment in the Astral. It is true that Harry did have an affair twelve years ago with a young poetry student, but since that time he has been true to Luz.

Now homeless and without a job, Harry gets a room in a local flophouse and spends his days drinking at a local watering hole named Maureen's. He finally lands a job at a Hasidic lumber yard through his crack-smoking Hasidic musician friend, Yanti. Here Harry works in accounts payable and is able to rent a one room apartment in the Astral. He figures that if he lives in the Astral, he'll be closer to Luz and better able to keep an eye on her comings and goings. He is unable to accept that things are over with Luz and he is determined to win her back.

Harry's daughter, Karina. is a freegan - she believes in getting all of her possessions for free. She gathers discarded things from the curbside, dumpster dives and goes to supermarket and restaurant trash bins to pick up food. She is very clear that the food she picks up consists only of tossed items with expired dates or unused edibles
.
Harry's son, Hector, is living on a commune and mired in a cult called Children of Hashem. They believe that the Messiah will be coming soon or is already here. Hector is being groomed as the new messiah and also is preparing to marry Christa, the cult's leader. Karina and Harry want to do an intervention, hoping to get Hector out of the cult.

This is, in its way, a parody of today's life and also a mirror of what is going on within a certain group of people. These people all live in a little area in Brooklyn and have been friends since the 1970's. Despite Brooklyn being in New York City, this neighborhood is its own little enclave with everyone gossiping about everyone else. The friends are all interconnected, to the point of all of them seeing the same therapist. The novel makes a big deal of this and the unethical practice of Helen, the therapist they share.

The novel reminded me of what Zoe Heller does so well in her writing and what Christensen tries hard to accomplish but doesn't quite succeed in pulling off. The parody comes off as stilted and without subtlety. For good parody to work, the reader must be able to see him or herself, or someone they can identify with, in the characters or culture. This doesn't happen here. The characters are very black and white without hues of gray. For instance, Harry is a complete atheist and Hector and Luz are absolute believers. Things are described as either right or wrong. Luz is a moralistic bully while Harry is a moderate and giving guy. There is a lot of repetition of subject matter as if the author is not sure that the reader remembers what has transpired earlier.

Despite its flaws, Christensen can draw a good description and give frailty to the characters she creates. There is pathos, narcissism, stupidity, and a distinct humor to some of the characters and their situations. Though the book didn't work for me as well as I'd have hoped, I think that a lot of readers would appreciate it more than I did.
(less)

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Aug 18, 2011 Alecia rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The writing in this book is quite good, so giving it just 2 stars was difficult. I would actually give it 2.5 stars. The story, as told by it's narrator, Harry Quirk, just didn't grab me. It's not that it was not enjoyable reading, it's more that I couldn't understand the point of telling the story at all. Harry's marriage is crumbling, as his wife has unjustly accused him of having an affair with his best female friend. His two children are rather interesting characters, but the story itself se...more

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Jun 17, 2011 Lola425 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

While I think I enjoyed The Epicure's Lament more, I did enjoy this book. It is rare that I empathize with a male character over a female one, but in this case, I was wholly in Harry's corner and furious with Luz. I think that Christensen totally captured that strange combination of middle-aged angst, the comfort of being settled balanced against the desire for some of that drama from our youth, which you can't replicate without throwing your whole life into chaos. Great writing, Brooklyn was as...more

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Jul 10, 2011 Diane rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was a disappointment and did not live up to its reviews. Harry Quirk, failed poet and failure as a husband tries to pull his life back together after his hot tempered latino wife throws him out after finding a book of love poems about another woman. She is sure he is having an affair. While Harry is innocent and tries to convince Luz of this she spreads the word among all their mutual friends. In additiin to having no job, no money and no place to live his son joins a religious cult th...more

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Jul 05, 2011 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This wonderful novel has many of the same basic elements as The Epicure's Dilemma by the same author. Again, Kate Christensen gets inside a very male mind and makes the reader believe in him. There's a lot of humor in this basically frustrating and unhappy story—a quality that makes all the difference to me because it adds a dimension that is, in my experience, so much a part of real life except in the very worst situations, which can't be redeemed no matter what. And although we get the entire...more

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Feb 18, 2012 Alexis rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

This novel details the breakdown of a marriage. Harry Quirk is a 57-year-old poet whose marriage is falling apart. He's kicked out of his family home because his wife suspects he is having an affair with his best friend (a woman named Marion). I really liked the style of writing and the way the author delved into the story. She really examined close human relationships, and why marriages and friendships can flourish or fall apart. Harry also had a number of different relationships, including a s...more

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Jul 09, 2011 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 21st-century-fiction

In my review of Christensen's previous book, Trouble, I said that I hoped The Astral would be better. And it was!

Harry Quirk, mid-list poet, Brooklyn dweller, father of two grown children, and rejected husband of Luz, introduces himself: "I was hungry and in need of a bath and a drink. At my back thronged the dark ghosts of Greenpoint, feeding silently off the underwater lake of spilled oil that lay under it all, the polyfluorocarbons from the industrial warehouses. I had named this place the En...more

In my review of Christensen's previous book, Trouble, I said that I hoped The Astral would be better. And it was!

Harry Quirk, mid-list poet, Brooklyn dweller, father of two grown children, and rejected husband of Luz, introduces himself: "I was hungry and in need of a bath and a drink. At my back thronged the dark ghosts of Greenpoint, feeding silently off the underwater lake of spilled oil that lay under it all, the polyfluorocarbons from the industrial warehouses. I had named this place the End of the World years ago, when it was even more polluted, hopeless wasteland, but it still fit."

After some thirty years of apartment life in the Astral, a huge redbrick fortress complete with brownstone arches, three-sided bay windows and corner towers, Harry and Luz have imploded as a married couple. Luz is the overbearing, pious, yet adoring mother Harry lost as a child. Harry stands in for the ne'er-do-well father who deserted Luz's family when she was eleven. They have raised a daughter who is a lesbian, freegan Dumpster diver and a son who emerged from his teen years of drug taking and social ineptitude to join a fundamentalist Christian cult.

It was not the plethora of modern issues that insinuated The Astral into my mind and heart. It was the characters and the familiar heartbreaking story of two people who have built a life out of propping each other up, a veritable fortress of a marriage, only to have its fatal structural faults bring it crashing into ruin.

Harry has a best friend, Marion, a photographer. They met as young artists newly arrived in New York City and enjoy a deep understanding, similar to what Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe had, but have never engaged in sexual intimacy. Luz, having always been jealous of their easy camaraderie, decided they were lovers after reading Harry's latest cycle of sonnets. She threw his laptop out the window and Harry out of her life. She will not be reasoned with despite Harry's attempts to explain the truth.

Kate Christensen's insights into the psyche of a middle-aged banished husband are astonishing. As in her earlier novels, she brings the world of artists alive and creates a sense of place with the ease of a master chef preparing a gourmet meal. In Harry Quirk however, she has surpassed herself as a writer, giving glimpses of love, sex and friendship from a mid-fifty year old male perspective that feel as true as anything written by Philip Roth or John Updike.

Perhaps in this age of longer lifespans, the coming of age novel needs to be balanced with the coming of maturity story. Christensen's affair of the human heart includes friendship, sexuality, parenthood and even religion. Harry, an atheist since his Catholic mother's death, investigates the true believer yearnings of his son and in this author's hands, even the cult phenomenon gets a sensitive treatment.

Over the period of less than a year, we watch Harry come to a tenuous understanding of himself, his wife, and his children as he just begins to look at the future. Along the way, my own life came into clearer view. That is what good fiction does.(less)

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Aug 11, 2011 Tempe Lohmeyer rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Harry Quirk is a 57 year old poet who has just been thrown out of The Astral Apartment building by his wife of 30 years. Accused of having an affair and writing love poems to a female best friend (which he didn’t do), Harry now finds himself homeless, jobless, and friendless as his bitter wife turns everyone against him.

Harry, the narrator and only voice in the book, is reexamining his life. As he wanders the streets of Brooklyn, he remembers years gone by and re-evaluates who he was and what h...more

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Aug 16, 2011 Moira rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There is undeniable pleasure in reading a novel set in a neighborhood that you know and love. But I would have loved The Astral if it hadn't been set chiefly in Greenpoint and Williamsburg. It's yet another Kate Christensen book that manages to show me how absolutist thinking, especially about human relationships, will lead only to loneliness. Ambiguity is painful, change is hard, transgression is jarring, and The Astral puts its characters in those in-between times and lets us watch them flail....more

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Aug 14, 2012 Shanna Mallon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book because Kate Christensen keeps a killer food blog--one that holds my attention through the writing and only the writing (there are no photos). The Astral is her novel about a man who's losing his marriage and about the inner struggle that goes on inside him in the process. The characters are complex, the descriptions are so good I would read certain sentences three times hoping they'd rub off on me and there are some very keen insights into the human mind throughout. I didn't li...more

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Aug 21, 2011 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

A smart, funny, knowing novel, populated with believable characters and located in the perfect spot (Brooklyn) for everything to come together. The book focuses on the dissolution of a long marriage, and the effect of the end of the relationship on the likable but self-centered protagonist, a poet entering his dotage. Questions of faith, fidelity, and friendship propel the story forward nicely.

Chapter 12 is perfect -- a conversation on the topic of unrequited love between platonic friends long...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Rosanne rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Astral is an apartment complex in Brooklyn that Harry Quirk and his wife Luz live until their 30 marriage falls apart.In the end, after countless pages of nonsense, they divorce.

I am tired of wasting good reading time on books that have been hailed as "must reads". So, I am advising everyone to read reviews like mine before spending time coming to these conclusions.

I maybe rather harsh on The Astral but this is number 4 or 5 that I have picked up with great expectation recently and been gre...more

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May 14, 2013 Deb rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Deb by: Julie Campbell

Shelves: e-book, fiction

Everytime I have looked up this book on Goodreads, the first review that shows up is this one -- "Quite frankly, this book left me thinking, "Who cares?" Harry is a 57-year-old man who has just been kicked out by his wife. He spends the next 300 pages documenting how he hangs out around the city, gets a job, gets fired, gets another job, and hangs out around the city some more. His wife comes off as mentally unstable, and he comes off as a self-righteous, depressing man in a mid-life crisis." We...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Leslie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really think the author has a keen understanding of human nature. She writes amazing dialog and I could visualize the expressions on the characters' faces vividly, and I had a complete image of everyone in my mind. Her characters were really well drawn and I also felt I had a good sense of the setting. I felt the arc of the story was a bit too neat though - from break-up to his new romance, the main character seemed to move on too quickly. I can't believe his new romance is considered to be pe...more

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Sep 30, 2011 Holly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011-reads

I liked the voice: urbane, contemporary, perspicacious. Christiansen is so good with language and voice. One doesn't have to agree with/approve of everything a character says and does: fiction is a dialogue and journey with another human being, right? (Or more than one if including the author herself). Christiansen writes a male protagonist and the meta-effects of that were like being inside of the mind of a woman seeing a man's view of the female mind. So the insights were sometimes hilariously...more

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Sep 12, 2011 Stephanie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Harry Quirk is a published poet and a self-identified failure whose marriage is on the brink when his wife, Luz, kicks him out of their shared apartment at The Astral after acusing him of having an affair with a mutual friend. The novel follows Harry as he roams his north Brooklyn neighborhood and strategizes how to regain footing with, Luz, the object of his desire. Unfortunately, Luz is a cipher, and it is unclear why Harry is so desparately trying to save his marriage. The weak narrative is b...more

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May 18, 2011 Lolly LKH rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Just finished advanced proof, and I am surprised by how much I liked it. Basically its an excavation of the 30 year marriage between Harry and Luz. Thinking the love poems he is working on are proof of a torrid love affair, Luz destroys his work and kicks him out of the Astral, the building the two live in. He spends a lot of time trying to explain to the mulish Luz that the poems are written to an imaginary woman and he has been faithful, lately anyway. Forced to find work, as he has spent year...more

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About Kate Christensen

KATE CHRISTENSEN is the author of six previous novels, most recently The Astral. The Great Man won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award. She has published reviews and essays in numerous publications, most recently the New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, O, Elle, and Gilt Taste. She writes an occasional drinks column for The Wall Street Journal called "With a Twist." Her blog can be accessed at: http://k ...more

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Quotes from The Astral

“Friendship is a strange animal. It only thrives in voluntary enjoyment of each other's company, in the pleasure of nonobligatory connection. I repeat: You owe me nothing.” — 12 people liked it

“My sudden, unforeseen capitulation had knocked me backward, and I had nothing to hold on to. My internal weather was eerily calm, as if in a tornado's aftermath, birdsong, sunshine, supersaturated colors, wreckage all around, and myself, dazed and limping.” — 3 people liked it

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title link	preview: The Astral
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The Astral

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