Endearing Coming of Age Story | The Secret of Lost Things

Really that's it? | The Secret of Lost Things | Sheridan Hay

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	• The Secret of Lost Things Sheridan Hay Anchor, 2008 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 45 reviews view larger image
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From S. Krishna's Books

Rosemary Savage is lost in every sense of the word. Her mother has recently died, and Rosemary is newly arrived in New York City from Australia. Alone and desperate, she ducks into a used bookshop one day and becomes mesmerized. The Arcade (which resembles The Strand in real-life New York) is a sea of books, a place for the lost Rosemary to find herself, or perhaps to vanish even more. She marvels at the knowledge contained within and decides that she has to work there, no matter what it takes. She is reluctantly hired by the owner, George Pike, and his albino manager, Walter Geist. And so Rosemary unwittingly steps into this tale of intrigue and suspicion in which everyone and everything is lost and cannot be found.

The Secret of Lost Things hosts an interesting cast of characters, which may be its strongest attribute. The enigmatic Pike and the troubled Geist are just the beginning. There is Pearl, a transsexual who aspires to be an opera singer; Oscar, the emotionally unavailable but brilliant man who captures Rosemary's heart; and Lillian, the Argentinean woman whose son is missing, presumed dead. Add to that Chap, Mr. Mitchell, and Art, and the reader finds a whirlwind of oddity and deception surrounding the innocence so vividly embodied within Rosemary.

Where The Secret of Lost Things seems to be lacking is in the literary thriller area. It is evident that the book was written to be a tale of literary suspense; here it does not succeed. The novel involves a lost manuscript of Herman Melville's called The Isle of the Cross. (Apparently, this is actually a true story - Melville's publisher rejected the manuscript and it has since been lost). Rosemary stumbles upon references to it with Mr. Geist and takes Oscar into her confidence, an indication of her sheer innocence. Rosemary becomes entangled within the web of lies at the Arcade which surround this lost work and eventually plunges headlong into disaster.

While this should be compelling, it simply isn't. There is something, some element of literary suspense that is critical to the genre, that is missing from Hay's work. It is tricky to put a finger on exactly what is wrong, but upon reading the book, the slow pace and difficulty to make any headway into the novel signal that there is something wrong.

The book also does not have a satisfying ending. Like the novel itself, the conclusion is ambiguous and the reader is left wondering if any of it was actually real. In novels, there is a healthy level of ambiguity, but this seems to take it one step too far.

While The Secret of Lost Things is a bit of a disappointment on the literary mystery level, it is still worth reading, if only for the eccentric cast of characters that Hay depicts. Any book lover would probably enjoy this novel, but those outside of that characterization will most likely find it rather dull. Overall, it is worth reading - the vivid descriptions of the Arcade will make any reader wish to find employment at a bookstore.

Originally published at Curled Up With a Good Book

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Endearing Coming of Age Story

Rosemary Savage is an 18 year old Tasmanian girl. When her mom dies, Rosemary's aunt "Chaps" buys Rosemary a ticket to NYC telling her "this is your moment, your chance to escape." Rosemary is as naive as they come, having been raised by a single mom and led a very sheltered life inside the confines of her mother's hat shop and "Chaps" bookstore.

Rosemary arrives in NYC and immediately falls in love with the Arcade, a large rare and used bookstore that contains as many quirky characters as books.

Many reviews here have outlined the story so I won't, but I will say that I enjoyed this novel very much. Rosemary is such a well-drawn character that I'm sure she's based on Sheridan Hay's real life. Rosemary's vulnerability and naivete feel crushing at times and having lived in NYC during Rosemary's age, I can identify with so many of her emotions and experiences.

All of the characters are well drawn--Walter Geist the creepy store manager who happens to be an albino; the detestable Oscar (the narcissist in the story) who Rosemary hopelessly falls for. I wanted to reach into the story and shake some sense into Rosemary over Oscar. The strong and vibrant Pearl, a pre-op transsexual who takes Rosemary under her wing as a friend and tells her "us girls got to stick together" and Lillian, the concierge at the Martha Washington Hotel where Rosemary lives when she first arrives in the city. Lillian has a dark sadness from her life in Argentina and Rosemary cannot help but he drawn to the tragic figure. These three women form a strong bond with each other based on mutual love, respect and maternal instincts.

Of course, all the men at the Arcade are leering over Rosemary's youth and beauty and she learns to protect herself from her coworkers. When a missing Herman Melville manuscript (one of the "Lost Things" in the title) turns up, the spire of great financial gain rears its head and we see the worst of the characters. While this was a central plot point, I was far more interested in the relationships between the characters and seeing how Rosemary negotiated the city, her grief over her mother's death, and growing up a world away from home.

Hay constructed a believable ending to the tale and took the time to wrap up the story at length. I practically cried at the end, seeing the resolution of characters' situations and Rosemary's coming to terms with her experiences at the Arcade and in the city during her 19th year.

I definitely recommend the Secret of Lost Things and give it 4 stars. Sheridan Hay has written a fine first novel.

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Really that's it?

The book was an okay read. I don't know if it was the title, the book jacket, or the summary on the back, but for some reason I had expected a fantastical element to the story, and there utterly was none.

The characters unfortunately were made to be the biggest rag-tag group short of a MTV Real World casting call, and really not for that much purpose. The book wasn't really a page-turner until the last forty pages or so. I'm not sure if we're supposed to wonder about the truth as it was presented at the end, but I didn't - it seemed clear cut to me. I was kind of surprised to find the whole book was building to just that one event really, it almost seems like a short story gone novel.

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"I saw all the mirrors in the world and none reflected me."

An illusive manuscript by the famous writer Herman Melville lays at the core of this intriguing tale that is steeped in literary tradition where books are revered, and even loved. Stretching all the way from the island state of Tasmania to New York, this novel is all about one flame haired girl's growth as she endeavors to discover her true path in life deep within the great metropolis of Manhattan.

When Rosemary Savage's mother dies, as a gesture against her all-embracing grief, her stoic best friend Esther Chapman gives Rosemary an airplane ticket to New York, knowing that a city would be the cure to the small life she had lived. An innocent babe in the woods, Rosemary has spent all her life ensconced in a provincial Tasmanian town, helping her mother run a small hat shop. Indeed, her only experiences of a really big city are when her mother sometimes took her on buying sprees to Sydney.

Although at first hesitant to leave her beloved home, Rosemary doesn't shrink from the challenge, landing in New York with only a present from Esther, a black and white photograph, and her mothers ashes in a miniature wooden Huon box wrapped in a silk scarf. Finding a room at a decrepit and rundown hostel, for woman, Rosemary is an 18-year-old innocent adift in the labyrinthine city, trying to cobble a life together, her situation and the death of her mother still weighing profoundly on her shoulders.

It isn't until she walks into the cavernous and dusty tombstone-like Arcade Bookshop and asks for a job that she feels as though she has finally come home, and it is here deep within the giant stacks of non-fiction and fiction that she meets the eclectic cast of characters, many of whom will shape much of her life to come and eventually awaken the dark and mysterious passions that lie within her.

A considerable number eccentric people are employed at The Arcade, a hodge-podge of variously failed writers, poets, musicians, singers, all marked with the clerkish frustration of the unacknowledged, the unpublished: the bad-tempered and curt owner Mr. George Pike, who loves money than the well-being of his staff; his legendry wealth a mirror of his frugality and stinginess; store manager and albino Walter Geist, every feature pallid, "his white ears like delicate sea creatures suddenly exposed to light;" Oscar Jarno, in charge of the non-fiction section, handsome in a poetic sort of way, with a magnetism in his face that immediately attracts the impressionable Rosemary.

Adding to the mix is the arcade's arresting cashier a pre-operative transsexual by the name of Pearl who operates the single register and is Pike's most trusted staff member on the main floor. After several weeks, the Arcade becomes Rosemary's home, and the city that houses it the larger world she wants for herself. Indeed, all of these characters come together, acting out their various insecurities with certain clumsiness and a single-minded reverence to the world of books.

But it is a letter that Rosemary reads to Geist that jump-starts her real journey into this world. A letter that perhaps indicates the existence of a lost manuscript of Herman Melville with the famous author's name linked to the great bookish philanthropist Julian Peabody. As Rosemary begins to delve deeper into the existence of this manuscript, she begins to read passionate missives that Melville has penned to fellow writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, and in the process realizes that Melville had something to tell her about a story that also resembles her own. Acting with a type of paternal influence, Melville could actually reveal something about her to herself.

This novel is as much a story about the love of books than it is about one girl's coming of age. For Rosemary, working in The Arcade - and her secretive desires for Oscar that steadily grow as she becomes more confident in the job - is her way of searching for an antidote to catastrophe in a world that has been emptied of all its contents. Although this novel tends to be over written and dialogue heavy in places, and the narrative slows down throughout the middle section, this tale is mostly a charming account of the world where people seem to move through a world that is mostly based on a form of deception and where few questions asked about the actual provenance of books.

In a novel where the printed word takes on the attributes of "the uncanny leveraging of desire," Rosemary comes to see the value of a life in objects; in books its where it's all about having eyes to see the true meaning of things and where the talent is to manipulate the lust for things that retains or loses their value depending on whose hands hold them. In the end it is only books that seem to hold a special kind of magic, an apparent as well as a hidden value. Mike Leonard May 08.

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Charming read

This is a beautifully written novel. The protagonist is naive yet strong and brave. I love the author's use of language in her discriptions and vocabulary. I'm a school librarian and way past Rosemary's age and yet I can feel for her and picture her in her settings: fixing up her dingy apartment and clomping around The Arcade. I love this book and will recommend it to my circle. Sheridan, please write more; thank you.

Eighteen years old and completely alone, Rosemary arrives in New York from Tasmania with little other than her love of books and an eagerness to explore the city. Taking a job at a vast, chaotic emporium of used and rare books called the Arcade, she knows she has found a home. But when Rosemary reads a letter from someone seeking to ?place? a lost manuscript by Herman Melville, the bookstore erupts with simmering ambitions and rivalries. Including actual correspondence by Melville, The Secret of Lost Things is at once a literary adventure and evocative portrait of a young woman making a life for herself in the city.

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