The Lower East Side Tenement Reclamation Association - David Rothman - Bog

"Winner of the Omnidawn Fabulist Fiction Novelette Prize, selected by Meg Ellison. This magical realist tale follows the travails of a burnt-out Queens' teacher who spends his time obsessing over the fact that he has been cheated out of living in his Grandma Rose's Lower East Side apartment, and is thus priced out of his 'More Recent Ancestral Home', Manhattan, that is. Rothman weaves a rich story about real estate and memory. Daniel, our protagonist, is haunted by the remembrances of his childhood experiences in his grandmother's apartment. One day he discovers a hidden relic on Rivingston Street, a tenement reclamation office run by an eccentric centurion named Hannah. When Daniel inquires about the chances of his reclaiming his grandmother's old tenement, Hannah is not impressed. "Things don't work like that, you rude, young schlub!" And so begins Daniel's journey to reclaim his past and to land an affordable space for his family in downtown Manhattan. This is a journey full of twists and turns, ups and downs, and an ending that would make even the most thick-skinned NYC real estate agent shake"--