Triburbia

Jun 05, 2012 Jill rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It almost takes an act of courage to write about very rich characters these days – particularly when they’re not only rich but also vapid. Any author who tries runs the risk of having his or her characters labeled “unlikeable.”

And indeed, these Tribeca neighbors – a sound engineer, a sculptor, a top chef and so on -- are not the most likeable characters in the world. In one of the stories, a group of friends twirls up “the best stoner munchie in the history of the world: pasta with caviar and tr...more

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Aug 05, 2012 Lola425 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I went into this book figuring I could nod like an insider (granted a B&T insider, but still) about locations in and around Tribeca while simultaneously loathing Greenfeld's characters, his book, and possibly Greenfeld himself. I did dislike all-- literally ALL--of the characters, but I was so drawn in to most of their stories that the dislike didn't really matter, and it did not extend to Greenfeld either. Greenfeld spot-on captured the essence of a particular neighborhood, at a particular...more

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Apr 16, 2013 Paolo Jose Cruz rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed-for-fully-booked, youth-culture, cities, read-2012

Triburbia is structured like a narrative mosaic; its intersecting pieces are tinted with various hues of ethical grey, dollar green, and mostly Caucasian. The novel’s perspective shifts among a loose-knit coterie of neighbors in New York's gentrified Tribeca area. Most of them are young(ish) parents, belonging to what sociologist Richard Florida calls the “creative class”: a sculptor, a photographer, and a sound engineer, among others. On paper, they’ve got it made – some earn handsome professio...more Triburbia is structured like a narrative mosaic; its intersecting pieces are tinted with various hues of ethical grey, dollar green, and mostly Caucasian. The novel’s perspective shifts among a loose-knit coterie of neighbors in New York's gentrified Tribeca area. Most of them are young(ish) parents, belonging to what sociologist Richard Florida calls the “creative class”: a sculptor, a photographer, and a sound engineer, among others. On paper, they’ve got it made – some earn handsome professional fees to do creative work; others make art subsidized by their affluent partners’ paychecks. Expectedly, the severity of their personal issues is proportional to their household income. Domestic squabbles and marital crises are inextricably fraught with aging scenester insecurities: status anxiety, self-doubt over compromised aesthetic sensibilities, and the diminishing returns from “selling out”. It’s all too easy to dismiss these as #firstworldproblems, so it’s a testament to Karl Taro Greenfeld's storytelling prowess that he's able to make readers care about these characters, as real people.

What holds their narratives together is the cultural milieu of Tribeca. In the period covered by the story, including extensive flashbacks, the neighborhood has gone from low-rent industrial ghetto, to artists’ enclave, to a veritable self-contained yuppie bohemia. Many of the characters have bought in – literally and figuratively – to the fragile illusion of an arts-fueled community, one that remains dependent, however begrudgingly, on the volatile capital being traded elsewhere in Manhattan. The gradual breakdown of the characters’ personal lives coincides with the looming threat of financial decline. Recent history has already given away the context for Triburbia’s ending: nigh collapse, bailouts, stimulus packages, then Occupation. Finding out how these events impact our well-fed artists results in a heady mix of schadenfreude and reluctant sympathy.

Triburbia combines wry cultural observation and earnest character studies with the promise of juicy details and veiled insider gossip. Call it The Bonfire of the Vanities for the Gawker era.

This review was originally published in Fully Booked Zine, September 2012.(less)

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Oct 31, 2012 Larry Hoffer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sometimes if I see a crowd of seemingly disparate people together at a restaurant, a sporting event, or other group function, I try to imagine their connections to each other, even invent backstories for them. It's an entertaining way to pass the time, and it often proves how what you perceive is often far from reality.

Karl Taro Greenfeld's Triburbia is a literary version of the same exercise. This book of linked stories examines a group of residents of the Tribeca neighborhood in New York City,...more Sometimes if I see a crowd of seemingly disparate people together at a restaurant, a sporting event, or other group function, I try to imagine their connections to each other, even invent backstories for them. It's an entertaining way to pass the time, and it often proves how what you perceive is often far from reality.

Karl Taro Greenfeld's Triburbia is a literary version of the same exercise. This book of linked stories examines a group of residents of the Tribeca neighborhood in New York City, generally over the course of one school year, although a few stories are flashbacks. It's an interesting and captivating look at a group of fathers who get together each morning for breakfast at a local coffee shop after taking their children to school, as well as their wives, mistresses, and children. To those outside looking in, many of these people seem to have it all, but when you look closely at their lives, you realize they have many of the same struggles as everyone else.

There's the sound engineer who realizes he looks like the police sketch of an alleged sex offender who has plagued their neighborhood, the sculptor torn between two women and lamenting his willingness to give up his dreams, the philandering playwright who discovers his relationship with his wife improves once he moves out of the house, the famed memoirist who finds himself accused of fabricating his books, even the Jewish gangster who can fix any problem except helping his daughter win over the lead mean girl in elementary school. And those are just a few of the characters Greenfeld vividly depicts.

Interestingly enough, most of the descriptions of Triburbia I saw prior to reading the book made a minor mention of the linked stories concept, so I was surprised as I began reading it. But although it took a while for Greenfeld to begin connecting the characters, once he did, my only criticism was that some of the stories seemed too short, and I wanted to learn more about the characters' lives.

This book was a tremendously fast and enjoyable read, and Greenfeld is a very talented writer who was able to shift narrative voice from character to character very easily. This is one of those novels that captivate but don't wow you, although when you're finished you realize you enjoyed it more than you thought. (less)

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Oct 28, 2012 Lisa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I think I’m over the whole “novel told in stories” idea. I tried not to let that influence me when I read Triburbia by Karl Taro Greenfeld. It’s a decent novel. It meanders a bit, tells the stories of the lives of a group of Tribeca residents. The stories are identified by address, with a lot of overlap and some surprising revelations about their residents.

The novel starts with a group of fathers, an informal breakfast club that meets after walking their kids to school. There has been a incident...more

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Sep 29, 2012 christa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Triburbia” was meant to be a palate cleanser. Books, blerg. My attention span was rotting at the edges and I needed something, but the something was undefinable so I didn’t know where to look. Then Amazon recommended Karl Taro Greenfeld’s debut novel and a copy from the library just happened to be on the kitchen table, my boyfriend’s spontaneous nab from a few weeks earlier.

And, whoa. There are few pleasures as great as going into a book cold, save for the plot summary inside the cover. Especi...more “Triburbia” was meant to be a palate cleanser. Books, blerg. My attention span was rotting at the edges and I needed something, but the something was undefinable so I didn’t know where to look. Then Amazon recommended Karl Taro Greenfeld’s debut novel and a copy from the library just happened to be on the kitchen table, my boyfriend’s spontaneous nab from a few weeks earlier.

And, whoa. There are few pleasures as great as going into a book cold, save for the plot summary inside the cover. Especially when the story pushes its boot into your chest and is, gulp, good. When you finish the first chapter, look at the cover and think “Can this possibly be?” Read another chapter and admit Greenfeld is really doing a bang-up job here.

The premise is yeah, yeah, yeah. A bunch of early middle-aged, moderately wealthy creatives, white or white-ish men, who live in the Tribeca neighborhood and regularly meet for breakfast after dropping the kids off at school. They are a sound engineer, a photographer, a guy with mafia connections, a puppeteer turned tinkerer, a hulking sculpture artist, a film producer, a lying memoirist. Greenfeld breaks the novel into a series of connected short stories about the upper middle-class woes of those in artistic fields. The chapters are titled by the street address of the featured character. For the purpose of comparison: As a whole, the effect is closer to -- but still doesn’t live in the same zip code as -- Jennifer Egan’s “A Visit from the Goon Squad” than whatever the hell that thing is that Molly Ringwald just lazily dribbled from the side of her mouth and on to a page like someone hopped up on Novacaine.

Dividing the book like this gives Greenfeld the chance to one at a time brandish a magnifying glass at the character. At first it’s like, “Ho-lee, wow. Does this Greenfeld dude know how to spin a yarn.” The first chapter is about Mark, a musician-turned-sound engineer who is married to a stoner and has two daughters -- one who is the quintessential mean girl on the playground. Word in the ‘hood is that a local high school student was tailed home from school and molested by a stranger. When the composite sketch circulates, the culprit bears an uncomfortable resemblance to Mark. This is especially humiliating because Mark was spotted on the playground at the school recording ambient playground noise the previous year, so he’s already got some eyes on him. This story is fantastic in the way it looks at parental paranoia, popular hysteria, the refashioning of dreams.

In the second chapter, a photographer with Little’s Disease remembers the year he went from a special needs school to the “regular” high school, where his sister Shannon was this beautiful dynamo who ruled the hallways. He’s quickly absorbed into a clique of unpopular kids with various stages of misfititis, but eventually attracts the attention of an older boy and they forge a friendship over spliffs. Then, duh-duh-dun.

Things are still going strong through the portrait of a former high school athlete-turned artist who is pelvis deep in a woman who looks uncannily like his wife and on to the puppeteer who loathes a popular mainstream puppet master and her dynasty, but can’t resist her funding when she invites him in to her fold to make something artistic and non-mainstream. A mobster can fix almost everything, except the girl who is bullying his daughter and then in the next chapter the bully experiences her own social shun.

After that, things taper. The characters become less distinct and their voices all have the same cadence. The stories aren’t amazing stories anymore, they’re just slices of life that are rather meh. The characters just seemed better defined in the beginning, then it’s like Greenfeld lost control of the story. You start to notice that you’re never going to see some of these characters again, except for in the background of someone else’s chronicle of woe. This is all the more unsatisfying because it had such a great start, such funny and tragic situations. (less)

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Sep 23, 2012 Deborah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"What happened? It wasn't the life I had dreamed of, it wasn't even the life I wanted now, but it was a life I could live. My dreams had receded into the quotidian banality of feeding and clothing a child. Into paying bills. Into trying to keep a marriage going."

This stream of consciousness from one of the characters in Triburbia could be true for most of them. And that is part of the book's charm. Although the writing doesn't sparkle and sometimes is downright slow going, you keep reading becau...more

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Sep 10, 2012 Leeswammes rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The book is about a group of men in Tribeca, an area in Lower Manhattan, New York. They regularly drop their kids off at school and then meet up for breakfast. They are all thirty or forty-somethings, most with a background in a creative job, such as a sculptor, a film producer, a memoir writer, and also, a gangster. They used to be well-known in their fields of work, but nowadays their fame has faded and they either work in a lower-status job, derived from their previous jobs, or pretend to be...more The book is about a group of men in Tribeca, an area in Lower Manhattan, New York. They regularly drop their kids off at school and then meet up for breakfast. They are all thirty or forty-somethings, most with a background in a creative job, such as a sculptor, a film producer, a memoir writer, and also, a gangster. They used to be well-known in their fields of work, but nowadays their fame has faded and they either work in a lower-status job, derived from their previous jobs, or pretend to be working, but really living off their wives’ salaries (who all seem to be quite successful now).

Each chapter tells the story of one of the men, and some come are featured in later chapters, too. We learn how they came to live in Tribeca, some of them when it was still up and coming so they got their loft for a good price, and others came later and paid big money for their exclusive home. Now Tribeca seems on its way down, and it’s time to move houses, where possible.

Most of them can’t live up to the standards of living that you’d expect in a nice neighbourhood like Tribeca. Their children go to a public school and there are worries about money.

The chapters are really like short stories about the different men in the breakfast group. Their stories are quite separate from each other and only sometimes a story touches on something that was mentioned in a previous chapter, or refers to one of the other men. The final chapters bring the stories together but even so, the book remains a collections of stories about men in a similar situation, and doesn’t have one overarching story line. However, the themes of relationships, wealth, failure, etc. are present in each of the stories.

As I’m not a keen short story reader, I didn’t appreciate the book as much as I could have. The writing is very good and the observations of the author about people living in affluent New York seem very astute.

If you’re into short stories about modern city life, this is a great book for you!(less)

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Aug 28, 2012 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As a NY'er I try to add a local author to my summer reading list and this year that author was Karl Taro Greenfeld. I wonder how much of this book is autobiographical and how much is straight fiction. One character, the recording studio head, Mark, is of the same ethnic background as the author and the author seems to hand this character the greatest leniency, in that, he is not as "destroyed" as the other characters are. He is able to overcome and create a "true" life outside the narrow confine...more As a NY'er I try to add a local author to my summer reading list and this year that author was Karl Taro Greenfeld. I wonder how much of this book is autobiographical and how much is straight fiction. One character, the recording studio head, Mark, is of the same ethnic background as the author and the author seems to hand this character the greatest leniency, in that, he is not as "destroyed" as the other characters are. He is able to overcome and create a "true" life outside the narrow confines of the world he lives. Nevertheless, and I mean this in a positive way, the character's ring so true to the archetype they represent that I found myself wondering if I knew the person he based each of the address headed chapters on.

There is an existential element to the author's characters as they begin the book as, somewhat, sheltered Tribecan residents, living the vision of the rich urban, artist lifestyle, to a more realistic existence in the post Obama bail-outs. The worth of their lives tied so closely to the worth of their lofts and the realization that the neighborhood was no longer the artist mecca, but a urban financial neighbood filled with corporate Americans (When Robert DeNiro fled the neighborhood to the Upper West Side...well, that should have been their clue. Mr. Greenfeld, by-the-way, mentions the bail-outs on page 248 if you are interested).

I did not hate the characters, I understand them, I went to school with some of them and I-- more-than-likely-- pass them on the street every day. They are complicated people who work very hard at being superficial. I think the genius of Mr. Greenfeld book is that he was able to give these characters a written life. It is not an easy task to do.

You cannot call this a novel in the classic sense. It is a collection of short stories with a central theme. It is very hard to seek a publisher on short stories, but the author and his agent should be commended for sneaking this one pass them (and if the HarperCollins people realized the truth, good for them. The short story form is all but dead and should be given a new life).

You do not have to be from New York City to like this book. I have met characters like this wherever I have roamed. What is most important is what the characters have to say about life in 2012, what we have become as Americans. We have, in so many ways, lost what is important and strive so-much for that which is not. In the end people seem-- like these characters-- alone in their thoughts and unable to completely commit to anyone else, including their spouses and children. They find a way to exist, but are they really living ?(less)

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Aug 27, 2012 Gail Cooke rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It’s not often that I’m truly saddened by reaching the last page of a book, but that was the case with Triburbia. Karl Taro Greenfeld has so winningly introduced me to the well-to-do residents of Tribeca, made me privy to their private thoughts, hopes and aspirations that I’m reluctant to let them go. I’ve spent just a brief time with them - the space of a school year.

These folks are a photograph album of Tribeca once it becamee one if not the most fashionable neighborhood in New York City. It’s...more
It’s not often that I’m truly saddened by reaching the last page of a book, but that was the case with Triburbia. Karl Taro Greenfeld has so winningly introduced me to the well-to-do residents of Tribeca, made me privy to their private thoughts, hopes and aspirations that I’m reluctant to let them go. I’ve spent just a brief time with them - the space of a school year.

These folks are a photograph album of Tribeca once it becamee one if not the most fashionable neighborhood in New York City. It’s 2008 and there
s a creeping uneasiness - the financial crisis has not yet occurred. We meet a disparate group of fathers who gather for coffee after walking their privileged offspring to school. Were it not for the common neighborhood and their children they probably wouldn’t give each other the time of day.

The men are identified by street addresses - for instance, 113 North Moore is the home of a 37-year-old half-Chinese, half-Causasian sound engineer. He describes his neighborhood as “a prosperous community. Our lofts and apartments are worth millions. Our wives vestigially beautiful. Our renovations as vast and grand in scale as the construction of ocean liners.”

As we’ve oft heard money does not buy happiness. In his case when some believe a child molester is in the area, flyers are made, tacked everywhere, and the photo looks very much like him. One of his daughters, Cooper, is the cruelest 4th grader to be found. She relishes excluding other girls from her circle, not allowing them to play jump rope with the chosen few.

This tactic so destroys the daughter of Rankin. a Jewish gangster who lives at 57 Warren Street, that she constantly weeps. He’s able to frighten most grown men but does not know what to do about Cooper, finally deciding to give a sizable donation so a Hebrew school can be built for his daughter to attend.

There is, of course, the husband who is having an affair with a neighbor’s wife, a nanny who quickly learns how to get the money she needs to go to college, a successful memorist whose writing turns out to be a product of his fertile imagination, and so it goes. Each resident is not only parcel and part of that neighborhood but also of an era.

Insightful, compassionate and punctuated with black wit Triburbia has let us share a fascinating world. Don’t miss it.

- Gail Cooke(less)

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Mar 26, 2013 Kelli rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: artsy, quirky-characters

Many of the reviews of this book state “I wanted to like this book but I couldn't.” My response was the opposite. I wanted to hate and dismiss this book but I couldn't put it down. The story captures a specific place, time and mindset. The characters and events are at times objectionable. While their circumstances were far from my experiences, their humanity and emotions were often familiar. The characters were painted in “slice of life” scenes in a way that reminded me of some of my favorite An...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Katie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm a sucker for novels set in NYC. I'm also a sucker for novels that are basically a group of interconnected short stories. Unfortunately, something about this one left me with a "meh" feeling. The writing is really quite good. The characters are believable, and everything connects pretty nicely.

I think my "meh" feeling comes from the same distaste I have for the fact that New York City has been very quickly becoming a city only for the rich - a diverse cultural sampling of the rich, but the r...more

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Jul 15, 2012 Eileen Granfors rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Triburbia" by Karl Taro Greenfeld took me by surprise. I had enjoyed "Boy, Alone,"(with a major quibble about one chapter) but as an Angeleno, I wasn't sure I wanted to read about another rich neighborhood of New York, much less their human frailties. I thought, "Big deal. Anyone knows the rich are not perfect." I am glad I read this book.

Through the interlinked stories, Greenfield takes us into Tribeca where five fathers meet each morning for coffee after dropping the kids off at the same sch...more

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Jun 23, 2012 Kasa Cotugno rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: location-usa-new-york, vine, era-post-9-11

Triburbia falls somewhere between a novel and a collection of linked short stories, reminding me of The Impressionists, which I read several years ago. Here, the characters are inhabitants of the lofts of Tribeca, leading creative lives that are, from the outside, enviable. They are successful, have gorgeous accomplished wives and high functioning children, and live in one of the most prestigious neighborhoods in Manhattan. The stories are told from many points of view, sometimes in the first pe...more

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Sep 02, 2012 Shelleyrae at Book'd Out rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc-are, blog-reviews, provided-by-publisher

Just a week or so ago I reviewed Motherland, a satirical exploration of parenthood and relationships in upper class Brooklyn. Triburbia is set just across the East River in Manhattan with a near identical premise and unfortunately I didn't enjoy this novel any more than I did the other.

Loosely connected by business, relationships or simply the school run, the men of Triburbia, whose creative professions allow them some flexibility, meet casually over breakfast to discuss film, sports and politic...more

Just a week or so ago I reviewed Motherland, a satirical exploration of parenthood and relationships in upper class Brooklyn. Triburbia is set just across the East River in Manhattan with a near identical premise and unfortunately I didn't enjoy this novel any more than I did the other.

Loosely connected by business, relationships or simply the school run, the men of Triburbia, whose creative professions allow them some flexibility, meet casually over breakfast to discuss film, sports and politics. Beginning with the Sound Engineer (113 North Moore), Greenfield reveals the histories of this group of men that includes a sculptor, a film producer, a writer, a career criminal, and the wives and daughters who share their lives.
With a mixture of first and third person narratives, it's disconcerting to start a chapter with a new character that has no identity except for an address and a profession. I was never entirely sure who was speaking, surprised once or twice to find it was a wife or even a daughter interjecting into the narrative. More properly a series of vignettes rather than a novel Triburbia has a disjointed feel, with no sure direction, though Greenfield does bring things full circle eventually.
There are one or two characters than inspire some sympathy, the father struggling with doing his best by his autistic son and the man who lost his first love and to his sister for example, but largely these men are shallow and self involved, fretting over real estate values, sex and social status. After the first few introductions, these men - their concerns and their ambitions - are all too similar. While Greenfield's observations may be wryly accurate they lack the insight I hoped for.
The wives are almost uniformly distant from their husbands, busy with work, childcare or in the case of at least one mother, an extensive drug habit. The vignettes that introduce the daughters of these men - the precocious, status aware Cooper and the ambitious Sadie in particular are a more interesting commentary on parenting in the enclave of the affluent.
I was perhaps more interested in the evolution of the Tribeca neighborhood than its residents. A once bohemian community full of shabby artist studios and warehouses the influx of wealthy financial types ordering "...renovations as vast and grand in scale as the construction of ocean liners..." ensure Tribeca is home to New York's newest millionaires. Still, a few artists remain like the puppeteer turned repairman (47 Lispenard) one of the lucky few in rent controlled loft spaces who by default is now privy to quality public schools for his children and a social status he cannot afford.

Greenfield, a resident of Tribeca, seems to have mined his own personal background for character inspiration and I suspect that his neighbours may also some recognise themselves within the pages of Triburbia. While I am sure the inhabitants of New York will delight in this portrait of their neighborhood, despite being largely unflattering, I suspect it will have little cultural relevance or interest outside of its environs.
(less)

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Aug 21, 2012 Cathy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: new-york

I picked this up because I loved quirky the front cover. This novel, or loosely connected group of short stories, charts the rise and fall of a group of somewhat affluent TriBeCa dads who meet up for breakfast every morning after dropping their kids off at the same public school. I could only work up empathy for one guy, and only because of his son's Autism, not his literary shenanigans. Some of the characters were despicable, like famous chef Giancarlo who is cheating on his wife, Ava who is in...more

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Jan 15, 2013 Pete rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Was familiar with Greenfeld's journalism and found "Triburbia" similarly effective. The author delves deep into his characters with minimal filler, assuming numerous voices and narrative techniques and managing to develop their rapidly-morphing setting in the process. Although some characters are far more compelling than others and some plotlines are left undeveloped (I wanted at least another chapter narrated by the photographer), each is quite memorable. Although a light read for the most part...more

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Aug 08, 2012 Suman rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book seemed like a less good version of Jennifer Egan's "A Visit from the Goon Squad." Like AVftGS, Triburbia is a series of vignettes connected together by random threads. Unlike AVftGS, these threads are not terribly subtle (hmm... I think these two people are connected because they are going to have an affair. Surprise! I'm right again), and the characters in each of these stories are about 97% unlikeable. They also seem stock, like suburban people transplanted to an artsy but gentrifyin...more

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Aug 15, 2012 Virginia Campbell rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I embrace being taken out of my reading comfort zone, especially when I am taken to a world which I will never visit and then find that I actually enjoyed the trip. This did not happen with "Triburbia" by Karl Taro Greenfeld. I looked forward to this book, was intrigued by the concept, and then found that I liked neither the characters nor the style of writing. Unappealing people who lead unpleasant lives are presented in a hard-boiled, somewhat awkward writing style which I found to be inhibiti...more

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Dec 04, 2012 Steve Horowitt rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book came to me as an Amazon recommendation. Knowing nothing about it, I went into the story blind. I was pleasantly surprised not only by the story line but the character development (I rarely read a book with such morally corrupt and overall not likeable characters, where I actually end up engrossed in those character's lives to see what comes next). Triburbia is definitely character driven and while fiction, we all know or have read about these people. They are liars, cheaters and morall...more

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

Is Karl Taro Greenfield's Triburbia a perfect Instagram of American life? His style captivates, his characters are complex. His plots are tight, wry, heart wrenching. I say "plots" because the novel is written as a series of interlocking short stories which build a vivid picture of a particular culture in a very particular place. It felt real to me, but what do I know? I found myself wanting to hear what someone from Tribeca in the '90s(?) thought of the stories. But of course I wasn't in Austen...more

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Jan 16, 2013 Kaycie Hall rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really enjoyed this book as a social critique on the nouveau riche bohemian set. It was also a really interesting look at the way neighborhoods in NYC evolve (and other cities, too, I'm sure) and push the poor out of neighborhoods that, for some inexplicable reason, become the target of the rich, trendy set.

As a narrative, I lost interest in the characters somewhere around the last three chapters. I also thought it was odd that some of the characters didn't have their own narratives and some...more

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Mar 18, 2013 4cats rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own

The premise of Triburbia is that, after dropping their kids off at school, a group of men meet for breakfast and on the surface interact with each other forming bonds of sorts.

Each chapter focuses on a different character and we see their life as it is and has been, the narrative also moves forward but the books structure makes the narrative slow paced. As the novel develops you see the characters emerge as an incidental player in another characters life.

The neighbourhood of Tribeca also becomes...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Rebecca rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: chicklit

A male take on family life in hectic New York City. The author tried to make it all secretive and stuff, by leading off with a tramatic event and have it unfold in each chapter without reveling the ending, but I am not a fan of that kind of storytelling and therefore did not allow myself to care too much about that aspect. Each chapter focused on a different man and family, with out giving too much away. I liked that there was a map at the front of the book with located where each family lived,...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The interesting part of this novel, a series of biting character profiles, is that the author was obviously writing about people and places he knows intimately—but turns out I really don't care about Tribeca, even though I once briefly lived there (in the "old" days the artist types in the book mourn). And I especially don't care about this particular pack of successful-guys-behaving-badly, although it was entertaining reading, much like GIRLS and MADMEN are entertaining with their sometimes una...more

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Apr 04, 2013 Michael Armijo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

TRIBURBIA, a novel by Karl Taro Greenfeld

This book was a gift from an International friend. She lived in Tribeca. I also lived there and this book offers a soap-opera type look at the downtown New York City area known as Tribeca. It is its own suburb of unique types and the stories seem quite real. It’s as if the names were changed by the author to protect the innocent. I enjoyed the intrigue.

Reading this book was like peering into a window of a town and watching the relationships evolve. The a...more

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Sep 21, 2012 Peri Kinder rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In these interlocking stories about entitled yuppies living in Tribeca, NY, it seemed very hard to find any of the characters remotely likeable. Having never been affluent, I don't understand the "have-to-have-it-all" mentality these characters seemed to have. Nothing makes them happy.

The stories of neighborhood men consisting of characters like a gangster, a failed memoirist, a hailed photographer, an x-rated puppeteer and a sound engineer weave in and out of each other's lives. It makes for an...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Molly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

3.75 stars, truth be told. I loved this book. I don't give 4 or 5 stars to many books. They have to sweep me away to get those. They have to leave me missing them to get those. 3 stars is too low, but 4 is too high for me. There were moments when it felt contrived, and that was mostly due to word choice, so it's subjective, but thus was an entertaining read.

Triburbia was great; the characters were so richly developed I felt I could pick them out if a line-up. And I loved and hated them all.

The...more

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Sep 26, 2012 cheryl rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Another advance read from the folks at Harper, this book straddles the increasingly fuzzy line between novel and short-stories. Like a few other books I've read in the past year, each chapter focuses on a different character who is connected to other chapter narrators. Most of the main characters are men, although women and even a child do take center stage in some pieces. All of the characters live in Tribeca, an area that had boasted an artistic vibe but grew ever-more exclusive and expensive...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Alecia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a somewhat difficult book for me to review, and I'd probably give it 2.5 stars. On the one hand, I liked Greenfield's writing, and found it engaging. On the other hand, I didn't feel that these interlocking stories were successful as a whole. The Imperfectionists and Olive Kitteridge (other books with connecting stories)achieved a unity and wholeness for me that Triburbia somehow did not. I am not sure if it is the lack of empathy I had for the different characters, or whether the storie...more

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