cover image Astor Place Vintage

Astor Place Vintage

Stephanie Lehmann. Touchstone, $16 trade paper (416p) ISBN 978-1-4516-8205-2

Lehmann’s enchanting fifth novel (after You Could Do Better) tells the stories of two New York women a century apart, interweaving their lives through playful synchronicity and hints of the supernatural. The present-day timeline involves Amanda Rosenbloom, who owns the eponymous Astor Place Vintage clothing store and has a strong attachment to the past. She mourns the spread of modern buildings in the East Village, where the store is located, and can’t let go of her married lover Jeff, a man she’s known since high school. While going through some consigned wares, Amanda discovers the 1907 diary of Olive Westcott, an upper-class woman who dreamed of becoming a department store buyer. The story switches to the past, with Olive, after her father’s death, facing widespread prejudices against women working and supporting themselves economically. Amanda feels an increasing connection to Olive and meets a possible descendant of the diarist,, in the process gaining the strength to assert her own emotional independence. Lehmann does a seamless job of moving between the past and present and gives a definite sense of place to the story’s two periods, with rich descriptions of city life and architecture. First-class storytelling with an enticing dose of New York City history. Agent: Emma Sweeney, Emma Sweeney Agency. (June)