Following Tuesday Nights in 1980, Molly Prentiss presents another ambitious and brilliant novel. Old Flame stars a young woman seeking connection in busy New York City and picturesque Bologna, while wrestling with its many permutations.
Emily is performing a life. She's about 30 years old, has graduated from bartending to a "real job" writing advertising copy for an iconic department store. She steals time at work to read poems and even do a little writing. She also feels the absence of her mother, who died in childbirth, and the shortcomings of her rigid, distant adoptive mother.
As the novel opens, Emily's creative department is finalizing the Women's Book, a biannual catalogue, and Emily is moving from just-work-friends to real-friends status with Megan, a graphic designer. More or less spontaneously, they travel together to Italy, where Emily spent an important year abroad when she was about 20. And in Italy, an unplanned pregnancy and a devastating fight with Megan shatter Emily's tenuously structured life.
Old Flame considers the particular challenges of being a young artist in New York, balancing the kind of work that pays ("the magnet was capitalism, but I couldn't see that then") with the kind that inspires. It considers feminism and appearances. Prentiss is a master of detailed descriptions, character studies, highly specific lists and meaningful settings. She offers a sensitive story about what it means to seek and shape connection in the modern world. Filled with both snark and wisdom, this novel is a gift of love and forgiveness. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia