Tuesday Nights in 1980 by Molly Prentiss

I had expectations going in solely from the title and cover (isn't there wisdom about not judging a book by...something?). The NYC art scene in the '80s sounded intriguing and interesting to me. Prentiss' writing was unexpected but not unliked. I got into that groove fairly quickly. I dove in with her, into Franca's life in Argentina, and was a bit unhappy to be pulled out so quick. Ah, it's ok, I'll find out more later.

Here's my issue with the book.

We touch on some very interesting characters, but only three are actually examined, and, in my mind, the three that we delve into are not the interesting ones. We lost the ones that held my interest and barely touched into another one that was filled with promise.

We lost Franca but gained her brother Raul. There wasn't anything redeeming in his character that made me care for him, nor made me sorry when he had an accident. We have Lucy, who, initially, I was excited to follow. A small town girl from the Midwest heads to NYC for a new, exciting life. Typical but I was hoping her path was atypical. Wrong again! She went the route of sexed-up, secondary character pretty quickly. Then there's James, who has synaesthesia and is an art critic. How he saw life and art was new and exciting and made him the top of the heap in the art world. Alas, his dear wife Marge was relegated to a bit player. I couldn't like James simply for the fact that, as Marge worked full time in an office and not doing her art, James spent every penny he got....not on rent, or food, or anything useful, but on art. And he saw nothing wrong with forcing his wife to work a dull job to keep a roof over their head while he puttered around the art scene.

I'm used to books where every character is nonredeemable (The Great Gatsby, anyone?) but the writing itself usually makes it all worthwhile. The writing here is good, don't get me wrong, but I wanted something else from the characters.