New York’s “Queen of the Bowery” emerges larger than life from the pages in Jami Attenberg’s novel Saint Mazie. Mazie Phillips-Gordon was a real person, an irrepressible, big-hearted movie theater owner and neighborhood legend in the Lower East Side during the Depression. Though well known as the tough-talking ticket-seller at the Venice Theater by day and an angel of mercy to the down-and-outs by night, her personal history remained a mystery.
Attenberg first learned of Mazie from Joseph Mitchell’s 1940 New Yorker profile. Fascinated by Mazie’s missing back-story, she decided to re-imagine this compelling protagonist.
The tale’s organizing theme is an effort to chronicle the real Mazie. Attenberg uses an array of storytelling styles to …show more content…
Among others, there’s Mazie’s now elderly neighbor, George Flicker, who recalls how Mazie always looked out for her sisters. Lydia Wallach, the great-granddaughter of the manager of the Venice Theater, notes, “[she] led a very big life for someone who barely left a twenty-block radius.” Even the son of Mazie’s long-time paramour adds details. Their anecdotes knit together the story line while peopling the book with entertaining characters, especially when they go hilariously off-topic.
To her credit, Attenberg includes just enough vivid period details to capture Mazie’s jazz-age life and voice without burdening the novel with minutiae. Her decision to forego the structure of a traditional narrative is a success as well. Though the novel’s unusual format is at first distracting, alternating diary entries, interviews and snippets from Mazie’s autobiography end up tying the story together.
The mystery of Saint Mazie is never resolved. There is no last minute disclosure to explain why she spent her life caring for “her bums.” It might be as simple as the final entry into her unpublished autobiography: “Someone loved them once, and that’s all you need to
Attenberg first learned of Mazie from Joseph Mitchell’s 1940 New Yorker profile. Fascinated by Mazie’s missing back-story, she decided to re-imagine this compelling protagonist.
The tale’s organizing theme is an effort to chronicle the real Mazie. Attenberg uses an array of storytelling styles to …show more content…
Among others, there’s Mazie’s now elderly neighbor, George Flicker, who recalls how Mazie always looked out for her sisters. Lydia Wallach, the great-granddaughter of the manager of the Venice Theater, notes, “[she] led a very big life for someone who barely left a twenty-block radius.” Even the son of Mazie’s long-time paramour adds details. Their anecdotes knit together the story line while peopling the book with entertaining characters, especially when they go hilariously off-topic.
To her credit, Attenberg includes just enough vivid period details to capture Mazie’s jazz-age life and voice without burdening the novel with minutiae. Her decision to forego the structure of a traditional narrative is a success as well. Though the novel’s unusual format is at first distracting, alternating diary entries, interviews and snippets from Mazie’s autobiography end up tying the story together.
The mystery of Saint Mazie is never resolved. There is no last minute disclosure to explain why she spent her life caring for “her bums.” It might be as simple as the final entry into her unpublished autobiography: “Someone loved them once, and that’s all you need to