Mark Kurlansky, perhaps best known for his impeccably researched nonfiction (Salt, Cod, and The Last Fish Tale), humorously and accurately chronicles the dramatic changes in Manhattan's Upper West Side during the 1980s in his sixth work of fiction, Cheesecake.
This vibrant, funny, and at times bittersweet story unfolds primarily through the eyes of the Katsikas family, who arrive in New York from a "small rock-bound Greek island." Two brothers--Art (born Achilles) and Niki (né Nikodemos)--and Niki's wife, Adara, open (what else?) a Greek diner on the corner of 86th Street and Columbus, and call it Katz Brothers. Art is the wheeler-dealer; Niki is "the seducer" host; Adara runs the kitchen and raises the goats that produce the diner's cheese at their home in Queens. Art has his eye on buying up real estate up and down the block; this eventually puts him at odds with his longtime diner customers, whose rents he raises.
These regulars add depth and dimension to the novel. Ruth Arnstein hands out treats for local dogs, alms for the street people, and breadcrumbs for the pigeons. Mimi Landau is a "long-established Upper West Sider" and former pastry-maker. Art's rent hike forces Mimi to move to Hoboken, N.J. But her old friend Gerta has a proposal that could bring her back (at least business-wise) to West 86th Street and restore its karma.
Longtime New Yorkers may feel wistful for a bygone neighborhood so lovingly rendered in Kurlansky's portrait of family-run bakeries, boutiques, and Barney Greengrass (still there); and others will enjoy this glimpse of a small town within a metropolis. --Jennifer M. Brown