THIS IS A LOVE STORY

Central Park is a touchstone for the four New Yorkers whose perspectives shape this novel.

Jane is a wildly successful visual artist; her husband, Abe, is an equally successful poet and fiction writer. They have raised a son, Max, in a Manhattan brownstone. As the novel opens, Jane is undergoing chemotherapy, and readers will come to learn that she was undone by postpartum depression; that the adult Max isn’t at all like his parents; and that during a bad patch, Abe took a risk that could have capsized his marriage. The book’s roving point of view finds Abe, Jane, Max, and a fourth key character revisiting pivotal moments in their lives, during which Central Park featured prominently; in one of Abe’s chapters, which are addressed to Jane, he prompts, “You remember we were walking by the Ladies Pavilion in the Park when you said that you could not be with someone who would not put their art first.” Scattered throughout the novel are omnisciently narrated chapters that pay homage to the park—”a beating heart, an adagio, a dreamy parenthesis”—and its denizens, many lovestruck or lovelorn. The book is beautifully if unremittingly observed, which at times gives it the feel of an extended prose poem, and Abe’s narrative strands in particular can read like freely associated, strung-together vignettes. Ultimately, Soffer’s unimpeachable sentences aren’t enough to carry an unremarkable story with familiar plot points. (And surely at least one of the novel’s two artists would have suffered a professional disappointment over the years?) Romantics and poetry lovers may find their bliss here, but readers looking for a novel with a compelling storyline may emerge dissatisfied.

The title is half right: There’s lots of love here, but there’s not much story.