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Lake City
"Kohnstamm delivers a blistering, clear-eyed, and sure-footed debut novel about the perils and pitfalls of misdirected ambition. More than that, Lake City is a hilarious and sneakily incisive examination of the cultural tensions and widening class divides that simmer on the fringes of an increasingly homogenized Seattle―or San Francisco, or Brooklyn, or Los Angeles, or any other American city in the throes of affluenza and gentrification." ―Jonathan Evison, author of Lawn Boy
The setting is Seattle's Lake City neighborhood during the 2001 holiday season. In the wake of the 9/11 tragedy and at the peak of Seattle's first wave of tech-boom gentrification―a wave that never quite made it to his neighborhood―Lane Beuche schemes how to win back his wife (and her trust fund). In his childhood bedroom in his mother’s decrepit old house, the idealistic but self-serving striver Lane licks his wounds and hatches a plot.
He discovers a precarious path forward when he is contracted by a wealthy adoptive couple to seduce and sabotage a troubled birth mother from his neighborhood. Lane soon finds himself in a zero-sum game between the families as he straddles two cultures, classes, and worlds. Until finally, with the well-being of the toddler at stake, Lane must choose between wanting to do the right thing (if he could only figure out what that is) and reclaiming the life of privilege he so recently had and, he feels, so richly deserves.
The setting is Seattle's Lake City neighborhood during the 2001 holiday season. In the wake of the 9/11 tragedy and at the peak of Seattle's first wave of tech-boom gentrification―a wave that never quite made it to his neighborhood―Lane Beuche schemes how to win back his wife (and her trust fund). In his childhood bedroom in his mother’s decrepit old house, the idealistic but self-serving striver Lane licks his wounds and hatches a plot.
He discovers a precarious path forward when he is contracted by a wealthy adoptive couple to seduce and sabotage a troubled birth mother from his neighborhood. Lane soon finds himself in a zero-sum game between the families as he straddles two cultures, classes, and worlds. Until finally, with the well-being of the toddler at stake, Lane must choose between wanting to do the right thing (if he could only figure out what that is) and reclaiming the life of privilege he so recently had and, he feels, so richly deserves.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 8, 2019
73 people are currently reading
1331 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Kohnstamm
13 books61 followersNew novel, LAKE CITY, out January 2019 on Counterpoint Press.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
January 3, 2019
Lake City is one of those books where you hate every single character. I kept reading because I just had to know if they learn life lessons or get what they deserve. I won't tell you if they do...
I read this book very quickly. The author writes with a flow that hooks you in and is easy to read. It's important that I admit that I'm a Seattlite, so I loved all the Lake City/Seattle references.
These sentences perfectly describe the main character of this book. Chaz is speaking to Lane: "'When you get older you realize that most everybody's got different versions of the same problems. The trap is thinking that it's all about you.'
Lane doesn't think he's special or unique. It's a proven fact that he's both special and unique."
I read this book very quickly. The author writes with a flow that hooks you in and is easy to read. It's important that I admit that I'm a Seattlite, so I loved all the Lake City/Seattle references.
These sentences perfectly describe the main character of this book. Chaz is speaking to Lane: "'When you get older you realize that most everybody's got different versions of the same problems. The trap is thinking that it's all about you.'
Lane doesn't think he's special or unique. It's a proven fact that he's both special and unique."
December 20, 2018
The protagonist is a terrible person. The antagonists are terrible people. Most of the secondary characters are terrible people. Everyone thinks everyone is deserving of their terrible circumstances except themselves. And yet, I couldn't put it down.
January 4, 2019
Funny as hell, scathing but rich with empathy for all of us who make the wrong choices in life. Lake City is a powerful portrait of specific shitholes on the outskirts of Seattle, but immediately recognizable to anyone who's spent time in the wet sodium lamp-lit fringes of any city, beyond the crawl of gentrification.
March 21, 2019
So, we've had Occupy Wall Street, the election of Trump, Hillbilly Elegy, etc. Now we are starting to get the novels about economic inequality, its causes and outcomes. Last year was Jonathan Evison's excellent Lawn Boy(just out in paperback) as an example.
Thomas Kohnstamm is a buddy of Jonathan Evison's. His debut novel, Lake City, is set in Evison's stomping grounds of the Northwest and its anti-hero Lane is another loser white guy who is doing his best to rise out of his impoverished Lake City neighborhood in northeast Seattle.
Lane has plenty of ambition. He has learned how to game the system. By the edge of his fingernails he has scrabbled his way into a college education, even a PhD program at Columbia in New York City
He also has goals: to get into a secure position in a well funded NGO and help the world, giving more opportunities to people like himself. However, his rich wife, currently funding his graduate studies, seems to have left him. Now he is back home, sleeping in his mother's garage and trying to hold things together.
The novel is one of those sad but funny, heartbreaking but savvy stories about social divides. I would say the author nails it pretty well. At times, it felt like he couldn't decide whether he was writing a literary novel or a gritty send up, a redemption story or a slap stick satire.
By the end I concluded he had done all of the above, resulting in some uncomfortable moments for the reader. Still I was impressed by the urgency of his plotting and found Lake City hard to put down.
The novel was the January 2019 selection of The Nervous Breakdown subscription book club. Thomas Kohnstamm's interview on the Otherppl podcast includes hair raising stories of his days as a travel writer and his years spent writing his first novel.
Thomas Kohnstamm is a buddy of Jonathan Evison's. His debut novel, Lake City, is set in Evison's stomping grounds of the Northwest and its anti-hero Lane is another loser white guy who is doing his best to rise out of his impoverished Lake City neighborhood in northeast Seattle.
Lane has plenty of ambition. He has learned how to game the system. By the edge of his fingernails he has scrabbled his way into a college education, even a PhD program at Columbia in New York City
He also has goals: to get into a secure position in a well funded NGO and help the world, giving more opportunities to people like himself. However, his rich wife, currently funding his graduate studies, seems to have left him. Now he is back home, sleeping in his mother's garage and trying to hold things together.
The novel is one of those sad but funny, heartbreaking but savvy stories about social divides. I would say the author nails it pretty well. At times, it felt like he couldn't decide whether he was writing a literary novel or a gritty send up, a redemption story or a slap stick satire.
By the end I concluded he had done all of the above, resulting in some uncomfortable moments for the reader. Still I was impressed by the urgency of his plotting and found Lake City hard to put down.
The novel was the January 2019 selection of The Nervous Breakdown subscription book club. Thomas Kohnstamm's interview on the Otherppl podcast includes hair raising stories of his days as a travel writer and his years spent writing his first novel.
March 17, 2019
I'd probably give this 3 stars but I round up for Seattle (and gave extra mental points because I was familiar with this neighborhood during these years). Despite disliking all the characters in this book, something about the writing style compelled me to read through this quickly. I did get a little skeptical of the constant references to how trashy Lake City is within Seattle, with the implication that it was among the worst places in the city; I kept thinking of other parts of the city that were the same or worse during that timeframe (Aurora?). Also, why no mention of Northgate, just up the hill? It's not like the Fred Meyer was the only source of employment and inexpensive clothes/household stuff in that vicinity. I also wondered if the author was aware of the Indian Child Welfare Act -- I couldn't tell, and that pulled me out of the story a bit.
I liked the exploration of the main character's selfishness and entitlement, even if it was hard to spend that much time with such an unappealing character. I'm still digesting some of the implications about class and socioeconomics. Overall: I'll be watching for more from this author, especially for more fiction set in Seattle.
I liked the exploration of the main character's selfishness and entitlement, even if it was hard to spend that much time with such an unappealing character. I'm still digesting some of the implications about class and socioeconomics. Overall: I'll be watching for more from this author, especially for more fiction set in Seattle.
May 26, 2019
I lived in Lake City for a year. It's a great place! We've all been to the oft mentioned Fred Meyer in North Seattle, that doesn't exactly make us an authority on class politics, but this is a sincere effort I guess. I wanted this book to be better. One problem is the narrator is a turd and his predictable march toward redemption hardly moves me. Most unforgivable are Lake City's painfully explicit themes, 1. Class division in the changing economic of Seattle in the early oughts, and 2. did I mention this book takes place shortly after 911, shout outs to hotmail and yahoo. This novel is like Titanic's "something Picasso..." times 100. Lastly, if you're going to write in close third limited then do that; the occasional slips into another character's psyche is just sloppy writing, where is your editor. These mean spirited reviews mostly speak to my own dissatisfaction in never finishing my own novel but that probably goes without saying.
February 7, 2023
I don't think I'm a big fan of anti heros.
The main character is a white male that is very pretentious. Lane comes from a complex background in that everything didn't come easy. He had to claw his way up through the world to finish college. Though, Lane does marry up and begins to live a life of comfort and free of worry. So when his wife cheats on him and he is thrust back into his life of poverty, Lane has an attitude about where he thinks he "should be". He makes remarks to other people he meets in his life of a similar background about his "real" life and it just makes me gag. I appreciated the journey he went through to get to a better place morally, but the journey was a difficult one for me to swallow. I just wanted to shake Lane and tell him to get a grip and work for what he has. Ultimately in the end he does the decently right thing, but I could have lived without reading this book in my life.
The main character is a white male that is very pretentious. Lane comes from a complex background in that everything didn't come easy. He had to claw his way up through the world to finish college. Though, Lane does marry up and begins to live a life of comfort and free of worry. So when his wife cheats on him and he is thrust back into his life of poverty, Lane has an attitude about where he thinks he "should be". He makes remarks to other people he meets in his life of a similar background about his "real" life and it just makes me gag. I appreciated the journey he went through to get to a better place morally, but the journey was a difficult one for me to swallow. I just wanted to shake Lane and tell him to get a grip and work for what he has. Ultimately in the end he does the decently right thing, but I could have lived without reading this book in my life.
January 27, 2019
Funny and readable story about a guy from Seattle who thinks he’s the shit but really doesn’t know shit. I liked Lane’s relatable character. He’s someone who wants to do good but often is lacking in motivation. Lake city’s writing has a very funny and satirical tone which is no surprise from the author of “Do Travel Writers go to hell”. I also enjoyed some of the cultural references that I picked up on as a fellow pacific northwesterner. Kohnstamm writes with Simon Rich’s humor and his character’s narcisssism and moral indifference remind me of the creatures that inhabit Brett Easton Ellis’ books. All in all an excellent first novel.
January 29, 2022
This book was a strange balancing act for me. Very readable, yet unsatisfying. The protagonist and his bosses are wildly narcissistic. I could not find empathy for any main character. I liked Lonnie. A few crumbs of just desserts were served at the end, but no real payoff.
March 21, 2019
This book is a very strange one. I can't say I was bored while reading, I was definitely enjoying myself, but it was missing something. Maybe it was a well characterized protagonist, maybe it's a satisfying ending, I'm not sure, but it is missing something. It's not surface level the whole way through, but maybe it needed a conflict with a few more shades of grey. If you enjoy books where the characters' moral compasses are tested, you can't go wrong with this.
March 11, 2019
I had a difficult time getting into this because I couldn't like any of the characters. Eventually, as events started to come to a head, the suspense propelled me through the last third of the book (also I really wanted to finish it before my book group met to discuss it). The ending held a few surprises for me, which I appreciated. The author's descriptions and history of Lake City are well-written and often humorous, and some of the characters do grow and develop, but overall I can't really recommend it.
February 14, 2019
This debut has so much to offer: crisp writing; a nicely-paced structure; and sly, insider humor blended with equal parts farce and slapstick. It is a throw-back to when novels were laced with social commentary, and at the heart of it all is an anti-hero hard to love, but even harder to hate. Its a masterful balancing act. And the eponymous neighborhood, while described with the exacting eye of a native son, could be anywhere that has struggled with progress, and the hard realities of who gets to benefit and who gets left behind. It is an important book that will make you laugh and think, often at the same time. And it will forever change the way you think about deli-sliced turkey.
February 3, 2019
Really unsure if I was supposed to enjoy this book or not. Every single character is, for the most part, a bad person, and I felt no empathy towards any of them. Even though they were purposefully written that way (at least I thought so) there was no charismatic charm that put me on their side.
The plot also felt a bit muddled and the stakes didn't seem very high. I'm not entirely sure I got it, or maybe it was so simple it just flew over my head. Overall this book left me a little confused and unsure of how I should feel about it.
The plot also felt a bit muddled and the stakes didn't seem very high. I'm not entirely sure I got it, or maybe it was so simple it just flew over my head. Overall this book left me a little confused and unsure of how I should feel about it.
March 17, 2019
A very good book. It really captures a place - Lake City, a neighborhood in north Seattle - and time - late 2001 - very well. The characters were terrific (if mostly unlikeable). The plot was good and I like the author’s style.
April 6, 2019
Lane Bueche grew up in down and out Lake City where Dick's Drive-In was the extent of dining out. Lake City is depicted as the car dealership and storage facility cast-off of the glittering city, and Lane did everything he could to leave it all behind when he met Mia, a well-to-do socialite he meets at UW who whisks him into a marriage and life in upscale Manhattan. (Lane is basically Jarvis Cocker of Pulp's "Common People" who marries the girl whose dad can bail her out from real life and its financial toil at any time.)
When Mia sleeps with another wealthy man from her set and Lane is kicked out by Mia and her disapproving Dad, Lane returns to the dregs of his childhood, moves back in with his single mom and her latest loser boyfriend, and must return to his job at the Fred Meyer deli counter. Lane is hoping for a return to his upscale life and PhD track at Columbia (he likes to claim he left NYC right after 9/11 simply because of the trauma of the event, which just makes him sound super awful), but while he is in Lake City he does as everyone else does--makes bad decisions that may just cement his entrenchment in life-as-grind realness. In a plot point that barely works, Lane becomes an unreliable informant on an indigenous woman, Inez, whose child was taken from her, for a lesbian couple who want to keep the child and give him a better life but are thwarted by homophobic laws and judges. Will Lane try to sink Inez into further ruin just to get ahead?
As other reviewers pointed out, most of the characters are flawed to downright awful, but Kohnstamm infuses the book with enough humor, insightful asides about this Seattle backwater, and enough compassion for his characters and their deck-stacked-against-them lives that I overall enjoyed this book. I also appreciate a book that tries to capture working class trials, and it is not a surprise that this author is friends with Jonathan Evison, another Washington State author who infuses his work with depictions of working class characters and lives. This would be a good read-alike for Evison's LAWN BOY.
TW: negative stereotypes, characters thinking, saying and doing some racist, sexist, homophobic shit, circa 2001
"Lane does remember the construction of a large blue castle across the street from Fred Meyer when he was about eight years old. As they tacked on the prefab crenellations, he dreamt that it would be the Lake City outpost of Enchanted Village or maybe an indoor waterslide park like they had up on Aurora. In the end, it became a windowless self-storage block. One of the dozens to follow. That was progress for Lake City: as a receptacle for the crap that Seattle didn't want but couldn't quite bring itself to throw away. That's the last time Lane would ever get his hopes up about the neighborhood.
By the end of the dot-com boom, the rest of Seattle had cut its hair and gotten a job. But Lake City was the mistress that grown-up Seattle kept around from its younger, untamed years. The one with electric-blue eyeliner and a missing incisor. The one Seattle would never introduce to its friends, but also the one who is always there when it needs to drink a forty and get a hand job in a parked car and not have to discuss what it all means." (49)
"North Seattle's Sisyphus of sliced sandwich meats" (64)
"Considering how many employees here have Washington State Food Handler Permits, Lane wonders how the microwave area could be so defiled with the encrusted remnants of Marie Callender's chicken potpies and Lynn Wilson's frozen burritos." (69)
"Mia admitted to Lane that she first became interested in moving to Seattle after watching Say Anything...,Singles and Sleepless in Seattle back in high school.
She, along with much of Lane's generation, bought into the idea of an earnest alt-utopia of overeducated, progressive do-gooders and amiable slacker artists. An organized metropolis with efficient public institutions, a low crime rate (beyond the few elusive serial killers) and quirky, if depressed, type-A culture. Norway of the Puget Sound. It's a place where Tom Hank's heartbroken Sam Baldwin would move to start his life over in a tidy, multimillion-dollar houseboat with an elaborate tropical fish tank in his kid's bedroom.
The town that Lane grew up in was less Sam Baldwin and more the realm of James Caan's John Baggs Jr., a sailor who shacks up with a hooker while on shore leave in Seattle in 1973's Cinderella Liberty." (75)
"The flip between classic rock on KZOK and KISW. It proves Lane's long-held theory that either Zeppelin or Heart is playing on at least one Seattle station at any given moment of the day." (132)
"Lake City is the leaky, yellowed fridge in a remodeled kitchen of granite countertops and fresh stainless steel appliances." (151)
When Mia sleeps with another wealthy man from her set and Lane is kicked out by Mia and her disapproving Dad, Lane returns to the dregs of his childhood, moves back in with his single mom and her latest loser boyfriend, and must return to his job at the Fred Meyer deli counter. Lane is hoping for a return to his upscale life and PhD track at Columbia (he likes to claim he left NYC right after 9/11 simply because of the trauma of the event, which just makes him sound super awful), but while he is in Lake City he does as everyone else does--makes bad decisions that may just cement his entrenchment in life-as-grind realness. In a plot point that barely works, Lane becomes an unreliable informant on an indigenous woman, Inez, whose child was taken from her, for a lesbian couple who want to keep the child and give him a better life but are thwarted by homophobic laws and judges. Will Lane try to sink Inez into further ruin just to get ahead?
As other reviewers pointed out, most of the characters are flawed to downright awful, but Kohnstamm infuses the book with enough humor, insightful asides about this Seattle backwater, and enough compassion for his characters and their deck-stacked-against-them lives that I overall enjoyed this book. I also appreciate a book that tries to capture working class trials, and it is not a surprise that this author is friends with Jonathan Evison, another Washington State author who infuses his work with depictions of working class characters and lives. This would be a good read-alike for Evison's LAWN BOY.
TW: negative stereotypes, characters thinking, saying and doing some racist, sexist, homophobic shit, circa 2001
"Lane does remember the construction of a large blue castle across the street from Fred Meyer when he was about eight years old. As they tacked on the prefab crenellations, he dreamt that it would be the Lake City outpost of Enchanted Village or maybe an indoor waterslide park like they had up on Aurora. In the end, it became a windowless self-storage block. One of the dozens to follow. That was progress for Lake City: as a receptacle for the crap that Seattle didn't want but couldn't quite bring itself to throw away. That's the last time Lane would ever get his hopes up about the neighborhood.
By the end of the dot-com boom, the rest of Seattle had cut its hair and gotten a job. But Lake City was the mistress that grown-up Seattle kept around from its younger, untamed years. The one with electric-blue eyeliner and a missing incisor. The one Seattle would never introduce to its friends, but also the one who is always there when it needs to drink a forty and get a hand job in a parked car and not have to discuss what it all means." (49)
"North Seattle's Sisyphus of sliced sandwich meats" (64)
"Considering how many employees here have Washington State Food Handler Permits, Lane wonders how the microwave area could be so defiled with the encrusted remnants of Marie Callender's chicken potpies and Lynn Wilson's frozen burritos." (69)
"Mia admitted to Lane that she first became interested in moving to Seattle after watching Say Anything...,Singles and Sleepless in Seattle back in high school.
She, along with much of Lane's generation, bought into the idea of an earnest alt-utopia of overeducated, progressive do-gooders and amiable slacker artists. An organized metropolis with efficient public institutions, a low crime rate (beyond the few elusive serial killers) and quirky, if depressed, type-A culture. Norway of the Puget Sound. It's a place where Tom Hank's heartbroken Sam Baldwin would move to start his life over in a tidy, multimillion-dollar houseboat with an elaborate tropical fish tank in his kid's bedroom.
The town that Lane grew up in was less Sam Baldwin and more the realm of James Caan's John Baggs Jr., a sailor who shacks up with a hooker while on shore leave in Seattle in 1973's Cinderella Liberty." (75)
"The flip between classic rock on KZOK and KISW. It proves Lane's long-held theory that either Zeppelin or Heart is playing on at least one Seattle station at any given moment of the day." (132)
"Lake City is the leaky, yellowed fridge in a remodeled kitchen of granite countertops and fresh stainless steel appliances." (151)
October 6, 2020
Lake City: A Novel - a review by Rosemary Kenny
To be completely honest, I found it quite difficult to categorise MC Lane Bueche (pronounced Boo-shay), the central character and narrator of Thomas Kohnstamm's maiden novel, Lake City.
Is he a pretentious, quasi-successful, self-made academic and investor, happily married to a Manhattan trust-fund princess?
Or is he just a down-at-heel, wannabe chancer, who's charmed his way into the high life, from his insecure 'basement-level' job - while said 'princess' was going through a rebellious post-teenage phase - then getting lucky, by being in the right place at the right time?
Either way, Lane's variety of nicknames, (especially Lane the Loser) seem to typify his emotional and verbal hesitance and misfortunes, that made me visualise him as a cross between Forrest Gump and Dustin Hoffman's 'Rain Man', with the way his actions seem to lead him in ever-decreasing circles, away from the path of his good intentions and down the metaphorical road to a personal hell.
The alternative/subtitle could be 'No Good Deed Goes Unpunished'; although Lane's intentions frequently seem not entirely without merit, yet the more philanthropic and/or altruistic his actions, (such as trying to warn Inez of the intent to prove her an unfit mother, by Nina), the greater his downfall - as when (after Lane's helped mother and son to flee), Inez reacts in a way that leaves Lane bewildered and Nina furious with him.
Other characters and snippets of an alternative 'Rough Guide to Seattle', all play crucial parts in bringing the whole smörgasbørd of emotions and events to a riveting climax, revealing Lane - now with his 'inner-eye' wide open - as finally able to be true to his 'adult' self, whomever that might turn out to be!
A modern classic in the making, along the lines of Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men' or Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Lake City belies author Thomas Kohnstamm's 'newbie novelist' status, as he writes with such searing clarity and outstanding skill, that he draws the reader into Lane Bueche's world up to the hilt, making it impossible not to engage with the whole Lake City 'experience' on some kind of visceral level.
Not to be missed - worth every penny and far more than 5/5 stars...get it today!
To be completely honest, I found it quite difficult to categorise MC Lane Bueche (pronounced Boo-shay), the central character and narrator of Thomas Kohnstamm's maiden novel, Lake City.
Is he a pretentious, quasi-successful, self-made academic and investor, happily married to a Manhattan trust-fund princess?
Or is he just a down-at-heel, wannabe chancer, who's charmed his way into the high life, from his insecure 'basement-level' job - while said 'princess' was going through a rebellious post-teenage phase - then getting lucky, by being in the right place at the right time?
Either way, Lane's variety of nicknames, (especially Lane the Loser) seem to typify his emotional and verbal hesitance and misfortunes, that made me visualise him as a cross between Forrest Gump and Dustin Hoffman's 'Rain Man', with the way his actions seem to lead him in ever-decreasing circles, away from the path of his good intentions and down the metaphorical road to a personal hell.
The alternative/subtitle could be 'No Good Deed Goes Unpunished'; although Lane's intentions frequently seem not entirely without merit, yet the more philanthropic and/or altruistic his actions, (such as trying to warn Inez of the intent to prove her an unfit mother, by Nina), the greater his downfall - as when (after Lane's helped mother and son to flee), Inez reacts in a way that leaves Lane bewildered and Nina furious with him.
Other characters and snippets of an alternative 'Rough Guide to Seattle', all play crucial parts in bringing the whole smörgasbørd of emotions and events to a riveting climax, revealing Lane - now with his 'inner-eye' wide open - as finally able to be true to his 'adult' self, whomever that might turn out to be!
A modern classic in the making, along the lines of Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men' or Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Lake City belies author Thomas Kohnstamm's 'newbie novelist' status, as he writes with such searing clarity and outstanding skill, that he draws the reader into Lane Bueche's world up to the hilt, making it impossible not to engage with the whole Lake City 'experience' on some kind of visceral level.
Not to be missed - worth every penny and far more than 5/5 stars...get it today!
December 11, 2020
This was a hell of a book. I really enjoyed it because it's unpredictable characters really held my attention. They are not perfect people and they do a lot of questionable things. Yet, you can't help but want them to do the right thing, improve and grow. A lot of these characters have likable traits despite having so many flaws. You will also find characters that will make you want to sock them in the face! (Which is a mark of good writing in my opinion.)
They are written like actual people that you would meet in Lake City. It makes me wonder if they were based off of actual people or if there is some true story it may have been based on. Either way I can tell a lot of care was taken. If you have ever lived, or spent time in a rough neighborhood then you know that effects people in a certain way. It's hard to put in words.
The thing I liked most about this book was that it was well paced and the plot was as unpredictable as the characters. Something happened in every chapter and it was to the point. I was not bored during any point in this book! Even when I thought something was going to go a certain way, this book kept hitting the reader with curveballs.
If the main character doing morally questionable things offends you this probably isn't the book for you. That being said, it's a good way to start a conversation about ethics and things people should and shouldn't do.
I probably rated this book a little higher considering that I have an attachment to the area of Lake City. I have been to most, if not all of the locations in this book. (Granted the people I used to hang out with in Lake City didn't do anything dangerous or illegal like the characters in the book! We stayed inside with cheap PS2 games from Value Village and out of trouble haha.)
If I had one thing to change about the book it would have been more closure. The ending left me wanting to know more. The ending did seem fitting but not enough detail. (Props for not having a predictable ending!) What is going to happen to Inez? Is Lane going to get his shit together and become successful? How about Jordan and Tracy? I feel like there should have been a prologue or chapter to kinda tie up these ends because now I am going to be thinking about that between now and the next book I pick up.
They are written like actual people that you would meet in Lake City. It makes me wonder if they were based off of actual people or if there is some true story it may have been based on. Either way I can tell a lot of care was taken. If you have ever lived, or spent time in a rough neighborhood then you know that effects people in a certain way. It's hard to put in words.
The thing I liked most about this book was that it was well paced and the plot was as unpredictable as the characters. Something happened in every chapter and it was to the point. I was not bored during any point in this book! Even when I thought something was going to go a certain way, this book kept hitting the reader with curveballs.
If the main character doing morally questionable things offends you this probably isn't the book for you. That being said, it's a good way to start a conversation about ethics and things people should and shouldn't do.
I probably rated this book a little higher considering that I have an attachment to the area of Lake City. I have been to most, if not all of the locations in this book. (Granted the people I used to hang out with in Lake City didn't do anything dangerous or illegal like the characters in the book! We stayed inside with cheap PS2 games from Value Village and out of trouble haha.)
If I had one thing to change about the book it would have been more closure. The ending left me wanting to know more. The ending did seem fitting but not enough detail. (Props for not having a predictable ending!) What is going to happen to Inez? Is Lane going to get his shit together and become successful? How about Jordan and Tracy? I feel like there should have been a prologue or chapter to kinda tie up these ends because now I am going to be thinking about that between now and the next book I pick up.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 16, 2019
There are books that are written to uplift, encourage, and offer hope. And then there's Lake City.
I stuck it out through this one because of its Seattle connections, but I don't think I would have made it without a little nostalgic "hey, I know that grocery store. I've seen that car dealership." This is a book about people struggling and making bad choices. Our flawed narrator grew up knowing he was smarter than his surroundings, but the reader quickly figured out he's not as smart as he thinks he is. In fact, Lane's not all that smart at all. He's also frustratingly hard to find sympathetic as he whines and wobbles forward toward resolutions of his own self-imposed crises.
The author has a knack for recognizing and capitalizing on human weakness and disappointment, and the story wraps up with a satisfying bang, but it's hard to think that the ends justified the long, dreary means.
I stuck it out through this one because of its Seattle connections, but I don't think I would have made it without a little nostalgic "hey, I know that grocery store. I've seen that car dealership." This is a book about people struggling and making bad choices. Our flawed narrator grew up knowing he was smarter than his surroundings, but the reader quickly figured out he's not as smart as he thinks he is. In fact, Lane's not all that smart at all. He's also frustratingly hard to find sympathetic as he whines and wobbles forward toward resolutions of his own self-imposed crises.
The author has a knack for recognizing and capitalizing on human weakness and disappointment, and the story wraps up with a satisfying bang, but it's hard to think that the ends justified the long, dreary means.
May 29, 2019
This story of a young man who thinks too highly of himself was engaging and entertaining. Every single character is a piece of trash, but having grown up in the PNW and knowing something of Lake City, these people are familiar trash. Every room, every part of a Fred Meyer store, every car interior, is disgusting. If you've never been in a trailer occupied by disabled drug addicts, you'll get a real feel for it here. Mr. Kohnstamm's ability to make things seem their absolute trashiest without trashing the reader's mood is weirdly commendable.
Lane, the MC, gets himself involved in a situation he definitely should have said no to, and ends up with a lot of conflicting goals. Everything does resolve, more or less, though I was unhappy that Lane , but I don't actually know what I would have preferred.
Lane, the MC, gets himself involved in a situation he definitely should have said no to, and ends up with a lot of conflicting goals. Everything does resolve, more or less, though I was unhappy that Lane , but I don't actually know what I would have preferred.
July 28, 2021
This captures Lake City in my opinion, although the University Trailer Park has recently disappeared in the slowest of Seattle neighborhood gentrifications. If you accept that fiction can have a not-likeable protagonist and uncertainty in motivations for characters, then this writing should satisfy. There is a lot here. The last line captures Seattle perfectly, and could have been the first (again, IMO).
There is some great history I didn't know. I suspected what Talents West was when my girlfriend at the time went in for a waitress interview ("you're a pretty girl, you could dance"), but didn't know the Doc Maynard rivalry story (could Seattle be the setting for a PBS historical fiction? nothing could be worse than Poldark). I will continue to watch this author's work and for him in and around Lake City.
There is some great history I didn't know. I suspected what Talents West was when my girlfriend at the time went in for a waitress interview ("you're a pretty girl, you could dance"), but didn't know the Doc Maynard rivalry story (could Seattle be the setting for a PBS historical fiction? nothing could be worse than Poldark). I will continue to watch this author's work and for him in and around Lake City.
June 21, 2021
At first I didn't think I'd like this book. Many of the characters are so unlikeable! But I kept reading, and really wanted to find out what happened to them all, and if they were learning any life lessons. And yes, it is a well-written, witty book, with some heart-breaking moments and lots of humor. Loved the references to Lake City and Fred Meyer, since I've lived in Seattle most of my life.
These sentences tell a lot about Lane, the main character. Chaz is speaking to Lane: "'When you get older you realize that most everybody's got different versions of the same problems. The trap is thinking that it's all about you.'" Lane is struggling to figure out which problems are his, and which ones belong to other people.
These sentences tell a lot about Lane, the main character. Chaz is speaking to Lane: "'When you get older you realize that most everybody's got different versions of the same problems. The trap is thinking that it's all about you.'" Lane is struggling to figure out which problems are his, and which ones belong to other people.
May 13, 2019
I liked this book! It’s a quick read, witty, poignant. I’ve lived in the Lake City neighborhood for a few years, now, so I loved catching all the references, and being able to picture the locations in my mind. The main character is relatably awful; his Phd stump speech is intermingled with deli shifts at the local Fred Meyer and drinking stolen wine in his mom’s trailer, his marriage and Ivy League semesters stunted by self-sabotage. Far from glamorizing the ‘Lake Shitty’ neighborhood (as people actually refer to it), this book juxtaposes the shiny hipster Seattle of Starbucks and Pioneer Square with the gritty, blackberry-infested car dealerships of old Seattle.
July 16, 2019
I live a few blocks from Lake City, so liked to familiarity of the places described. This is the description I'd read from the book that made me want to read this one: "By the end of the dot-com boom, the rest of Seattle had cut its hair and gotten a job. But Lake City was the mistress that grown-up Seattle kept around from its younger, untamed years. The one with the electric-blue eyeliner and a missing incisor. The one Seattle would never introduce to its friends, but also the one who is always there when it needs to drink a forty and get a hand job in a parked car and not have to discuss what it all means."
Otherwise, it was an okay first novel.
Otherwise, it was an okay first novel.
January 22, 2019
A kind of “Confederacy of Dunces” for Seattle. Funny and bitter, with deep, deep anthropological detail. The pop culture stuff is cover for a bleaker comment on class and what it takes to get ahead in America. I see some of the other reviews commenting on how unlikeable the characters are—but I think part of the book’s point is that ambition, a quality Americans encourage and admire, especially in poor people who’ve “pulled themselves up,” requires self-centeredness. This book asks—but doesn’t answer—if it’s worth it.
July 25, 2019
4.75/5
Where was this book when I was 21 and thought I knew everything?
This is a story set in the gritty parts of Seattle, it's as if you're there breathing in the ugly smells, and you want to close your eyes and pretend like this place doesn't exist, but it does, and it hits you close to home because you realize that every city has this district.
If you're looking for characters that you can relate to on a close level, and grow to love, look elsewhere.
I'll be keeping an eye out for any upcoming work from Kohnstamm.
Where was this book when I was 21 and thought I knew everything?
This is a story set in the gritty parts of Seattle, it's as if you're there breathing in the ugly smells, and you want to close your eyes and pretend like this place doesn't exist, but it does, and it hits you close to home because you realize that every city has this district.
If you're looking for characters that you can relate to on a close level, and grow to love, look elsewhere.
I'll be keeping an eye out for any upcoming work from Kohnstamm.
April 7, 2020
Listened to this on audio. Maybe a more professional narrator would have improved my rating? The male narrator had multiple characters and a lot of dialogue to read. The deep gravelly voice of Nina was the most irritating. The same things were happening throughout the story...trying to get money, trying to get to NY, trying to get his wife, Mia, back, equivocating to multiple people. Characters were not believable and this seemed like a novel laced around a lot of namedropping of locations in Lake City and Seattle.
March 5, 2019
A fair take on Seattle and Seattleites. We need to take a long look in the mirror to remember who we are and be sure we are building on our strengths. First off the dialogue is excellent and the background richly and honestly brought me back to my North Seattle roots. I’ve always thought Skid Row gave the best genealogy of Seattle - New York Alki. Thomas brings this all together in a roller coaster with brilliant gems studded throughout. Hold on for a ride.
March 11, 2019
As a resident of a neighborhood adjoining or possibly part of Lake City, I found this very informative and also disturbing. The challenge is not letting a place gentrify to the detriment of locals, but to uplift all boats together somehow. The hint of a silver lining at the end was nice.
Getting to know Lane, the main character, was painful in many ways, but at the same time, I couldn't put the book down. Looking forward to seeing what the author writes next!
Getting to know Lane, the main character, was painful in many ways, but at the same time, I couldn't put the book down. Looking forward to seeing what the author writes next!
March 16, 2019
I feel very similar to many of the reviews on here about this book. I hated every character, I hated the plot, and I hated the grunge overture...and I never want to go to a Fred Meyer again. However it was a quick easy read and the author has you hooked almost from the first chapter. I loved the Seattle Lake City references and supporting a local author...but ultimately this book was depressing and the best part was when I finished it.
July 22, 2020
I read Kohnstamm’s “Do Travel Writers Go to Hell” years ago.
In Lake City, he flexed his versatility as a writer by introducing us to Lane, a troubled and relatable protagonist who seemed to have fallen out of favor with the world, partially by his own doing, and partially by the circumstances.
The dialogues were engaging. The characters were well-crafted and flawed (as we all are). Fun, captivating, and thought provoking.
In Lake City, he flexed his versatility as a writer by introducing us to Lane, a troubled and relatable protagonist who seemed to have fallen out of favor with the world, partially by his own doing, and partially by the circumstances.
The dialogues were engaging. The characters were well-crafted and flawed (as we all are). Fun, captivating, and thought provoking.
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