The Revolution of Every Day

The appeal of squatters in lower Manhattan making their last stand against Giuliani will be apparent to anyone currently paying rent in New York County, but there’s little more than ’90s nostalgia at play in Luna’s debut novel. Not that the residents of Thirteen House are models of DIY bliss: the tenement’s heart and soul are the ex-junkie runaway, Amelia, and Gerrit, the partially deformed Dutch immigrant whose passion is rehabilitation—of electronics, old bikes and Amelia herself. With eviction imminent, Thirteen House’s only ally is Cat House, named both for Cat, a faded scene queen, and the many felines she adopts. Other strays include Steve, the father of Amelia’s baby, and his long-suffering wife, Anne. Not surprisingly, interpersonal politics are emphasized over the gentrification narrative, and a gloomy inevitability shadows the proceedings. “A life without constraints—that had been the goal,” but these squatters’ best days are clearly behind them. This novel gets points for not being Rent, but as a portrait of an era, it’s still a romantic simplification populated by caricatures: the wasted punk-naïf, the disfigured father figure, the damaged matriarch. There’s no revolution to be found in this novel, which feels far too prefab. (Oct.)